Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday evening this House passed a resolution in regard to the British Government's proposal to introduce an amnesty in respect of certain offences committed in Northern Ireland. In the short time available to me last night I made some points which I wish to put in context today. I understand it is intended to convey the resolution of this House to Members of the British Parliament, specifically the House of Lords. I have no problem with that proposition.

Going back to what the Minister, Deputy Coveney, said, it is time that we examine all the alternative ways to consider historic cases. This House should have a considered debate on that subject where we could consider at great length what the realistic possibilities are of having a reconciliation based on some form of historic review. For my part, I am of the view that there is little or no chance that MI5 or MI6 or, indeed, the army council of the IRA and those who are still under its sway will ever participate in an open way in some kind of truth commission. We will never find out officially who planted the bomb in Enniskillen or who blew up this person or that person. I do not believe we will ever get to the bottom of the Scappaticci stakeknife issue because there are two organisations, the British security establishment and the Provisional IRA, which do not want us to find out what happened in respect of that.

As I said last night, given that it was the case that the leadership of Sinn Féin sought immunity from criminal prosecution for IRA volunteers for their part in the Troubles during the period from 1998 to 2007, of which I have personal knowledge, we need a more honest and truthful approach to the question of whether it is only to be private soldiers in the British Army who are prosecuted for these offences while their superiors and people who are concealing the truth walk away scot-free, or whether an imbalanced, one-sided investigation of historic crimes, such as we are faced with at the moment, is really going to bring about reconciliation or is it going to make the victims of those unexplained crimes of the IRA and others feel more bitter and more alienated in the future. It is time we had such a debate.