Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The British Government's amnesty proposals for dealing with the people that its armed forces killed, openly and secretly, is an attempt to cover up murder by the British state on a grand scale. It is aimed at protecting those who pulled the triggers and those who politically gave its armed forces permission to carry out public and secret executions, in the main of people not involved in the conflict who were primarily members of the nationalist community.

The Relatives for Justice organisation, which is dedicated to representing the relatives of those killed and is campaigning for the truth for their loved ones, estimates that the British Government is responsible for nearly one third of all the killings. We all know that the British armed forces are responsible for the massacres on Bloody Sunday, in Ballymurphy, Springhill and Westrock, and on the New Lodge Road, for the murders of other individuals going about their normal everyday lives, and for the high-profile shoot-to-kill operations where IRA or INLA volunteers were summarily executed when an arrest operation would have been a viable option but was rejected in preference for a politically motivated execution.

Generally speaking, the British Government defended the actions of its forces at the time of the killings and continues to do so weekly in the courts in Belfast, blocking relatives who are trying to get truth and justice. The public record clearly shows that the British Government is responsible for these killings. The public record also clearly shows that the British Government is denying justice to the relatives of those it killed, and has done so for the past 50 years. What of the public record of its actions using loyalists, through collusion, to kill more than 400 people? These deaths include bomb attacks on McGurk's Bar, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and attacks such as those on the Strand Bar in my own community. The public record shows, through a series of inquiries some of which were set up by the British Government, the widespread systemic use of collusion. I remind the Seanad that collusion is the organised and planned murder of citizens by British intelligence officers and loyalists collaborating together. The former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Stevens, said in April 2013 that as part of his inquiries into collusion he questioned 210 members of illegal loyalist paramilitary groups, and that 207 were state agents. In January 2015, Sir Desmond de Silva's report into the killing of the human rights lawyer Pat Finucane said that more than 90% of the intelligence information in the hands of loyalists came from members of the British armed forces. Stevens and de Silva were appointed by the British Government to carry out their investigations. The senior loyalist, Brian Nelson, the main intelligence officer for the UDA, which is the principal loyalist organisation, was also a British army agent. He told Lord Stevens that he had been tasked by his British army handlers to make the UDA a more effective killing machine. Brian Nelson was not recruited from the ranks of the UDA. He was actively placed there by British intelligence to carry out his murderous work.

In her book Lethal Allies, the highly respected journalist Anne Cadwallader investigated the killing of 110 people by the notorious Glenanne gang. In all of the killings a member of the British Crown forces was involved. There is a clear trail of evidence from the streets of the North to Downing Street, linking those in the British Crown forces who publicly killed on behalf of the British Government. Even though the British Government has denied justice and truth to the relatives of those it publicly killed, it cannot wriggle out of its direct responsibility. It is there irrefutably on the public record. This is not so with collusion, which was the British Government's secret war, and its amnesty proposals will keep the details of that secret war in the vaults of Downing Street and Whitehall, never to be revealed. Even though there is an abundance of evidence in the public domain through inquiries linking British intelligence and loyalists, these amnesty proposals, if they were implemented, would protect the British Cabinet, from the Prime Minister down, from its full responsibility and blame for these killings.

These proposals have brought swift national and international criticism from human rights organisations and are described as worse that the actions of Chile's military dictator in terms of their sweeping and catch-all nature. This unilateral action stands in marked contrast to the support from relatives and supporters for the proposals that the Irish and British Governments and the North's political parties agreed to in the Stormont House Agreement. In a consultation on these proposals, more than 17,000 people supported them and opposed an amnesty. The Time for Truth campaign, an umbrella group representing victims across society, has organised a number of large-scale demonstrations against these British Government proposals, including a day of action with mobilisation across all of Ireland just a number of weekends ago.Last year, Relatives for Justice organised the signing, by 3,500 relatives bereaved in the conflict, of an open letter in the Irish and US media to An Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister supporting the Stormont House Agreement. The British Government did not have the decency to respond.

The UK is alone with these proposals. There is no community or political support in Ireland, the US or Europe. To date, the UN special rapporteur, Amnesty International, the Human Rights Commissioner for the Council of Europe, the US Senate and House of Representatives, the Irish Government and all the political parties here, the law society in the North, the British Labour Party, the previous adviser to the Obama Administration, Michael Posner, the US ad hoccommittee to protect the Good Friday Agreement, church leaders and, crucially, the relatives of those killed and maimed, oppose these amnesty proposals. These proposals have a twin objective, namely, to protect those in Britain's armed forces who were responsible for killing civilians and those in the British Cabinet who gave political support and cover to those involved through collusion in the secret war. There is only one interpretation, namely, that the British Government and its armed forces are above the law and are not accountable for the killing of hundreds of people.

There is only one solution. The British Government must listen to the calls from human rights organisations and bereaved relatives and to the call from the Seanad tonight. It must work with the Minister, his Government colleagues and all the political parties on this island to fully implement the Stormont House Agreement.

On a personal note, I know I do not need to convince Senators but I will leave them with a potential scenario. I fully accept this case is just one instance of hundreds and thousands of cases and of people who have been impacted by the conflict. The Ballymurphy massacre was cited earlier. Less than a year after it occurred, the British Army returned to the adjoining streets of Springhill and Westrock and murdered a further five people. Less than a year after Fr. Hugh Mullan was killed, Fr. Noel Fitzpatrick, of Corpus Christi parish as well, was shot and fatally wounded. Fr. Fitzpatrick, having been shot, was brought to my grandmother's home in Westrock Drive, where he drew his last breaths.

His family and the families of the rest of those killed in Springhill and Westrock have, like so many others, campaigned for 50 years for an inquest, the most basic of entitlements when someone has been lost like this. Now, after 50 years, they are finally awaiting the potential of that inquest taking place next year. The real impact of this legislation is that, at the stroke of a pen, a Tory government in London can say "No". That applies to so many others and so many victims and survivors and it is why it is so important that a clear message go from this House, unified and unanimous as it is but also adamant we cannot allow these proposals to go forward.