Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach agus leis an Leas-Cheannaire. Ba mhaith liom labhairt faoi thoscaireacht a bhí againn go Londain an tseachtain seo. I want to reflect, if I may, on a trip that a delegation of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement made to London on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. The purpose of the delegation was to make a last-ditch effort to plead with the British Parliament to scrap its legacy proposals that the Government seems determined to bring forward, despite knowing full well and having heard from the UN, the EU, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, victims groups and every political party on this island that it is the wrong way to proceed and will cause further hurt, harm and trauma for victims and survivors of the conflict. I regret to say it is my assessment that the British Government is determined to proceed with this despite all of the concerns expressed and despite all of the questionable legality of the legislation. It seems that when it comes to Ireland, Irish voices and the experiences and needs of victims and survivors right across the board do not matter. What matters are Tory manifesto commitments appealing to a very small constituency of British ex-service men and women.

Next week, both the British-Irish Council and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference will meet, in Jersey and London, respectively. The Irish Government needs to take this opportunity to step up its diplomatic efforts and ensure there is a broadening of diplomatic efforts around Europe and North America to ensure that this really harmful, regressive legislation does not come to pass. If we park party politics for a moment, we are hearing this universally from every victim. Every victim is telling us that this is not the way forward, that this is actually about protecting perpetrators. We have worked collaboratively on this across these Houses, between Government and Opposition, and it is the same in the North. There is unanimity on this but the clock is ticking. Unfortunately, despite the efforts made up to this point, the British Government is not for changing its mind. That said, there is still time and we need to do that bit more because we owe it to those most hurt and most impacted in our society. We must do that bit more and ensure not just that the proposed legacy Bill - I refuse to call it a reconciliation Bill, as the British Government has named it - falls but that we return to the agreed proposals under the Stormont House Agreement, imperfect as they were. We must utilise that agreement as the mechanism for moving forward on this issue.