Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to ask the Leader to organise a debate on collusion between the British security forces and the Ulster Volunteer Force and other loyalist paramilitary groups in the North. An excellent recent documentary on RTE showed that gangs of murderers were sponsored by the British state. They were basically death squads. This state-sponsored terror was orchestrated with the full knowledge of Downing Street, Westminster and the British Government. The time for soft diplomacy is over. Frederick Douglass said that "power concedes nothing without a demand".

In Downing Street tomorrow, the Taoiseach will meet David Cameron, who could release all the files on the collusion allegations with a stroke of a pen. There are many horrific cases, but the most horrific is the case of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which was the biggest mass murder in the history of this State. Even though the Barron report showed that the bombings could not have been carried out without the assistance of people in the British military, David Cameron is refusing to hand over files that would show the British state had nothing to do with it. If I were accused of the biggest mass murder in the history of this country, I would want to clear my name. If I were David Cameron, that is what I would do. If I were the Prime Minister of England, I would do that. Even though European courts and UN bodies have said the British state needs to carry out investigations, they have refused to do so. As a former Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade put it, first they deny, then they cover up and years afterwards they eventually apologise. Soft diplomacy is not good enough. The Taoiseach needs to demand that those files be handed over so we can prosecute those who perpetrated the biggest mass murder in the history of this island. I ask the Leader to organise a debate on this matter. Indeed, I propose that motion 18 on the Order Paper be moved and be taken before No. 1. I hope there will be all-party support in this House on the issue, as there was in the Dáil.