Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I commend Senator Emer Currie on bringing forward this motion tonight. It is important to remember that in the message coming from this House, our strength is in the unity of that message. The British Government's amnesty proposals to cover up the murder of civilians in the North is breathtaking in its arrogance and intent. Not only has it united human rights organisations, political parties in Ireland, Britain, the EU and the US in opposition to these proposals, it has infuriated the relatives of those whose loved ones died at the hands of the British crown forces and its allies in the loyalist organisations, due to the language used by the British Government to defend its outrageous plan.

The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the British Secretary of State for the North, Brandon Lewis, use the language of reconciliation and expressions of regret that, to date, all efforts to resolve the legacy issue have failed and that the amnesty cover-up will help relatives seeking justice and truth. This soft language from the mouths of Johnson and Lewis is fooling no one, and certainly not the relatives of those killed. Relatives have been at the coalface of the decades-long efforts by the British Government to block them from getting truth and justice. It has been the actions of the British Government in the courts in Belfast and elsewhere that has prevented relatives getting truth and justice.

For years, the British Government has reneged on agreements made with the Irish Government and political parties to resolve the legacy issue. In fact, the most recent and most ambitious agreement - the Stormont House Agreement - is the latest to fall foul of this duplicitous and deceitful approach by the British Government. I remind Senator McDowell that the Irish and British Governments, including all the North's political parties, negotiated the Stormont House Agreement as the way forward on legacy issues.