Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the family of Councillor Patsy Kelly to the Chamber today and I support their campaign for truth and justice. I appreciate the Tánaiste coming to the House today, especially in the context of the ongoing challenges presented by Brexit.

To be able to look to the future we have to deal with the past. We know this because we have listened to the families of the Bloody Sunday massacre, whom we met again earlier this week, and the families of the Ballymurphy massacre. We attended the inquest as well. We have listened to the families of the Loughinisland massacre. They came down to the House as well. We have listened to the family of Stephen Travers, who we saw on a Netflix film that was recently released. We have listened to the family of Patsy Kelly - they are here today - as well as to Pat Finucane's family and many more families.

One thing that struck me after the recent Bloody Sunday findings was how the families were seeking justice not revenge. The stories, pain, injury and loss from across the political spectrum have to be acknowledged. The views of these families have informed our approach to engaging with the past and building for the future in a victim-centred and respectful manner rooted in equality, dignity and justice.

During the most recent phase of the Stormont negotiations the British Government agreed with Sinn Féin to release the legacy inquest funding requested by the Lord Chief Justice; to commence the consultation on legacy legislation minus reference to the Statue of Limitations; and to establish the Stormont House legacy mechanisms. We know that the way to honour these commitments is the immediate establishment of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. I call on the Tánaiste to play his part in ensuring that is done.

I commend the great civic engagement and the wonderful work being done across communities by so many different groups on this island and in Britain. One such group is the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace founded by Colin and Wendy Parry. I had the privilege of meeting Colin Parry several years ago with Martin McGuinness in London. He was one of the most inspirational human beings I have ever had the honour of meeting. He was able to reconcile the pain that he and his family had gone through and yet bring that forward to do such wonderful work with the peace foundation that he subsequently formed.

The Stormont House Agreement, an agreed template for how we can address issues, needs to be implemented. In the meantime, legacy issues remain painful and combative. Republicans continue to be attacked by unionist politicians for remembering our patriot dead. Our party chairman, Declan Kearney, and others have repeatedly said that we have every right to respectfully remember our patriot dead and we respect the rights of others to do the same.

Acts of war can never be romanticised regardless of the wider context in which they occur. Multiple narratives exist about the political conflict in the North, including those of republicans, the British state, unionism, constitutional nationalism and indeed those who purport to suggest that the conflict was nothing to do with them. Sinn Féin accepts this reality and believes our society must move to a point where we can collectively agree to disagree. We must not create a new battleground to fight a war that no longer exists. Sinn Féin is pursuing the establishment of an independent international truth commission. The actions of British state forces and their agents through the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s are part of the reason the past is so contested today. British state opposition to opening the millions of files that disclose information on the actions of its forces and agents has turned the legacy into the slow waltz described by the families affected. That magnifies the pain and suffering of the victims of the conflict.

I welcome the statement from the Tánaiste. In particular, I welcome his comment that all deaths must be properly investigated and prosecuted in compliance with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights regardless of the perpetrator. I thank the Tánaiste for the work he has done to date. I am encouraged by much of the work he has done. It is our responsibility - by which I mean all of us collectively, including the Irish Government, the British Government and all of us as legislators - to ensure we have peace and reconciliation and prioritise the structures that are needed to put these in place so that people are not bound by the past.