Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

What happened to these 14 men was truly horrendous. They were subjected to sleep deprivation, wall standing, stress positions, white noise and beatings. Alex Kane wrote in The Irish Newsa few days ago "that the past is always in front of us". Our history and our past are always in front of us. If we want to deal with the legacy issues and with truth and reconciliation, we must have an understanding of what happened. We must find the truth and justice must be done, whether for the State or for anybody else.

In 1971, Ireland made a complaint to the European Commission on Human Rights that these 14 men, who had been interned in Northern Ireland that year, had been subject to five techniques of enhanced interrogation that constituted torture under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR. While the Commission upheld that view, a subsequent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in 1978 found that the techniques were not torture but "inhumane and degrading treatment". In 2014, the Government lodged an application with the European Court of Human Rights requesting that it revise its 1978 judgment to say that the treatment constituted torture under Article 3 and not inhumane and degrading treatment. The application was based on material released into the National Archives of the UK by the UK Government.

I welcome this motion by Senator Ó Donnghaile. I welcome the fact that Senator Ó Donnghaile is in this Chamber because he brings that perspective to an area about which we have sometimes forgotten about and about which we want to forget. Unless we have truth and reconciliation, these things must be aired on the floor of this Chamber. I thank Senator Ó Donnghaile for bringing the motion. Many issues have arisen in the past 30 years which we can debate and about which we can call for resolution in this Chamber.We are united across party lines to get truth and reconciliation. Senator Ó Céidigh summed it up correctly that Ireland is moving in a different direction. We are seen as independent, with no colonial baggage. We are seen now as independent arbiters around the world. If we want to have a global footprint, we cannot have issues on our doorstep or on our island that we have not addressed. We are talking about the legacies of the past. These things must be deal with, so I support that call.

Some of the material disclosed by the RTÉ investigations unit included a letter dated in 1977 from the Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees MP, to the then Prime Minister, James Callaghan. In that letter, Rees stated his view that the decision to use methods of torture in Northern Ireland in 1971 and 1972 was taken by Ministers, in particular Peter Carington MP, the then Secretary of State for Defence. On 20 March 2018, the court delivered its judgment in the matter of the Government's application for revision. The decision of the court was supported by a majority of six judges to one, but interestingly the minority view was expressed in a strongly worded dissent by the Irish judge, Síofra O'Leary. Judge O'Leary said that the seven-member Chamber had “opted for an extremely narrow version of what the Court was dealing with in 1976-1978”.

The hooded men's judgment was a landmark in international law, as it was the first time a state took on another state at the European Court of Human Rights. However, we can all acknowledge the deep disappointment being felt by the men and their families right now. It must also be said here that four of the original hooded men have since died: Sean McKenna, Michael Montgomery, Pat Shivers and Gerry McKerr. I was honoured to meet Mr. Liam Shannon, who is in the Visitors Gallery. I hope that we shine a light on injustices, try to get the truth and move this forward.

Noting the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in March, the Taoiseach said that these men were certainly subjected to terrible abuse and degrading punishment. He also said at the time of the judgment that the Government would consider it, and having done so make a decision on whether to appeal it. I understand the Government has not yet made a decision on whether to apply for a referral to the Grand Chamber. I also understand that advice from counsel will need to be carefully considered by the Attorney General inter alia before any Cabinet decision to move ahead with the application. I urge the Government to support this cause but, in that context, the Government has decided neither to oppose nor to support this motion.

The motion's proposers are right. I attended events to commemorate the Good Friday Agreement in Washington last week. We went to Capitol Hill to thank the politicians, the members of Congress and the people of the United States for their support in bringing about the Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace to the island of Ireland. We thanked them, but we also said that we must renew this. The Good Friday Agreement cannot move forward unless we deal with situations and issues like this. I hope that in the coming weeks the Government will support this decision.