Frances Black (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome to the House. I commend my colleague, Senator Currie, on bringing the motion to the House. It is wonderful that she is doing this and that everybody is so unified in respect of it. As we discussed last week, representatives from all major parties North and South recently signed a document outlining their rejection of the UK Government's proposals to introduce an amnesty for legacy killings. The document, signed by all the main parties in Belfast and Dublin, states they reject the British Government's proposals for dealing with the past, including amnesty for those accused of murder.

As we are all well aware, the Good Friday Agreement was welcomed, warmly and rightly, by the majority of people on this island. It did, however, have one gaping hole or omission to which we must now face up. It did not address the rights of the victims of the conflict. It did not ensure that their rights, as enshrined by all international conventions of law, would be protected and advanced. Our peace agreement became an outlier in the international community because of its failure to address the impact of the conflict on the people harmed most. As a result, the peace process shamefully neglected victims of the conflict. However, in 2014, the body politic of both islands at last began to make restitution by signing the Stormont House Agreement. This was the beginning of ensuring the peace process would be meaningful for the victims.

Bereaved parents who were in their 40s and 50s when they voted so selflessly for a peace agreement that did not recognise them were made a promise that their rights to truth and justice would at last be fulfilled. Now, however, in 2021, a year and a half after New Decade, New Approach recommitted the British Government to implementing the Stormont House Agreement within 100 days, these same parents now face death with the most shameful legislation imaginable about to pass through Westminster's Legislature. Complete and unashamed amnesty would be unprecedented and unconscionable. It is unbearable that we now turn to those mothers and fathers and tell them they will never have truth or justice because the British Government would prefer to shield a small number of unnamed soldiers from a maximum of 24 months in prison.

Whether those parents buried their children as a result of republican, loyalist or state actions, they have a moral right to truth and justice and we have a moral duty to defend that right. The mother of three-year-old James, who was shot dead in his front garden, has never received an official account of who took his life.From being told that it was a stray IRA bullet to being told that it might have been the British army, this mother is now in her 80s with a lifetime of torture of not knowing what actually happened. Now she has been told that this legislation, which will end any prospect of a full, effective and, critically, an independent investigation, is in her interest.

There is the mother of a 14-year-old girl called Martha who was walking home with her best friend when a gun battle commenced. No one has claimed responsibility for taking Martha's life but many people have speculated about who it was for 40 years. Her nearly blind mother is now in her 90s and she holds on for just two things - truth and justice - only for the British Government to tell her that it cares so much about her that she cannot have an inquest into her daughter's killing.

The father of Rory and Gerard, who were killed in their home on the birthday of their sister, Róisín, by state agents now faces the prospect of ignominy instead of justice. Victims of the conflict deserve much more than tea and sympathy or empty promises not to forget them. Victims understand perfectly well the implications of the deliberate passing of time. They also have a right to the full rigour of the law. They have a right to investigations that are compliant with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR. They have a right to expect that when all the parties and both Governments sign an agreement, that the agreement will be adhered to. There must be truth and justice for James, Martha, Gerard, Rory and all the thousands of others. No legislator has the right to deny that.

I commend Senator Ó Donnghaile on his emotive description of what life has been like. My father was a Northern man and I spent a lot of my youth in the North. When my siblings and I were very young we saw the army presence on the streets when our family travelled to the North, which was scary. I cannot imagine what it was like to live in the North in constant fear of what was going to happen next.

I acknowledge the work done by the Minister. I am proud to be here today to discuss, in unity with all Members of the Seanad, this motion. Finally, I commend Senator Currie on tabling the motion.