Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom cur leis an mhéid atá ráite ag an Seanadóir Conway-Walsh go dtí seo.

I want to add to what was said by my colleague and leader, Senator Conway-Walsh, about this morning's shocking revelations about the failure of the PSNI to disclose what it deemed to be significant and sensitive information to the police ombudsman about the case of the Ormeau Road bookmakers. We are all familiar with the atrocity at the Sean Graham bookmakers on the Ormeau Road in 1992. The 27th anniversary passed last week. It is particularly frightening when we consider this in the broader context of the cases it relates to and the trajectory of the collusion through the importation of weapons from apartheid South Africa which were furnished to any number of Loyalist paramilitary organisations under the watchful eye of the British intelligence services. Many of these weapons were put directly into the hands of British agents within those organisations, which went on to commit some of the worst atrocities in the course of the conflict.

The revelation today about the Ormeau Road bookie case opens up new lines of inquiry not only into the that incident but also incidents such as the Greysteel massacre, the Castlerock murders, and a series of other murders, including the murder of an elected representative in this jurisdiction, Councillor Eddie Fullerton, in Buncrana. Senator Mac Lochlainn will speak more about that case which pertains directly to this jurisdiction, the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Government, not least, as outlined previously, our standalone responsibilities as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement and supporters of the Stormont House Agreement's provisions on truth recovery and legacy issues.

In the first instance, this will be another traumatic day for the victims and survivors. Our thoughts are with them, not least the people on the Ormeau Road who are neighbours of mine. These are people I know because our constituency office in south Belfast is just a few doors up from the Sean Graham bookies shop. Today will be particularly hard for them. It is also problematic that this is only one in a series of cases where the PSNI is acting in bad faith and obstructing the release of information. This is hampering truth recovery for families and it should be of deep concern to all of us. The political reality is that confidence in policing is on the floor in nationalist and republican communities as a result of this. That should galvanise all of us to redouble our efforts and work hard to ensure that full truth recovery and justice are brought forward for these victims.