Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support my colleague in regard to the issue of a debate on the fishing industry. I would also like to remind colleagues there is a briefing today at noon by Kieran Staunton, the president of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, in the Members Dining Room about the issue of the undocumented Irish who are currently residing in the US and the legislative proposals before the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.

I would also like to support the call in regard to the statements by Mr. John Larkin, the Attorney General for the North of Ireland. I find it amazing that a man would propose such a thing when we consider the lack of co-operation from the British Government on the topic of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the biggest crime committed in this State in the last 50 years. There is ample evidence that there was collusion by the British Government and the British state in those killings of Irish citizens, and that elements of the British army were involved in assisting in the explosions that happened in Dublin and Monaghan. What we see is that he wants to sweep the issues under the carpet. Let us remember it is the British state that is not co-operating with the Irish State on this issue, yet he wants this all to go away because, if the evidence came out, it would show that the British Government and elements of the British state were involved in that atrocity. There is also the issue of Bloody Sunday and that of the murder triangle that was exposed by Anne Cadwallader in her book, where off-duty RUC men and off-duty reservists in the British army were involved in killing Catholics in Tyrone. The Unionist community too is feeling betrayed because its members were killed by paramilitary organisations simply for being Protestant.

The reason I am asking the Attorney General to consider his position is because he appoints the Director of Public Prosecutions and he sets the tone in the prosecution office. If he is saying these things should not be pursued, then that sets the tone for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The Attorney General is saying that it will prove difficult to convict these people. In fact, he admitted on radio, which is beyond bizarre, that it will be more difficult to pursue paramilitaries than to pursue state actors. On the international stage, by contrast, people responsible for war crimes during the Second World War - Nazis who were in charge of gas chambers and concentration camps - are still being put on trial and imprisoned, and rightly so. The same should apply to anybody who was involved in collusion and murder in the North.