Seanad debates

Tuesday, 14 December 2021

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business

 

10:30 am

Photo of Niall Ó DonnghaileNiall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to join in the remarks expressed by Senator Craughwell on the Miami Showband and the case in Belfast yesterday. I want to take a moment to elaborate on that. The survivors and families of those murdered in that atrocity have been awarded damages of about £1.5 million, as well as significant legal costs. The British Ministry of Defence and the PSNI settled the case, which alleged collusion. We know the fake checkpoint where the Miami Showband met its untimely and unfortunate demise was a joint endeavour between the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Regiment, an all too common experience in collusion. Given the severity of this issue and given that this House recently and unanimously passed a motion condemning the British Government’s attempts to introduce an amnesty for its state forces, it is important that we take the opportunity, as Senator Craughwell rightly did earlier, to reflect on that. It is quite telling that there is hardly a word about this settlement in the mainstream British media. God forbid that someone alleged to have committed atrocities here in Ireland would be pursued by families or survivors through the legal process. That would receive plenty of column inches.

This morning I raised the Nationality and Borders Bill in the Commencement debate. The Bill has passed through the House of Commons at Westminster and will proceed to the House of Lords. I welcome the response of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, to this Bill but this is an issue that we need to be alert to and that will impact the neighbours of Members of this House. This is a regressive and worrying step that the British Government has taken. While I find the broader intent behind the Nationality and Borders Bill quite repugnant, we need to be alert to the fact that this will have direct consequences on the island of Ireland. A core component of the withdrawal agreement was to ensure there would be no return to a hard border. This is a return to a hard border for non-Irish, EU and non-EU citizens. We need to be alert to that fact and we need to work to ensure that citizens are protected and that there is no hierarchy of citizenship in this island.

I again want to join with Senator Craughwell in asking for the Minister for Defence to make statements on the Women of Honour.We had what I thought were some very assertive reassurances and statements made to us in this House. I do not for one second suggest there is a recoil from that but given what we heard over the weekend, it warrants the Minister coming back early in the new year to deliver a message to this House and, more importantly, to the women impacted.

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