This is a really serious issue. It is an issue the Irish Government has not done the right thing on for a number of years. I will give a couple of reasons. There are three elements to all this. There is what has happened in the Troubles in relation to Irish citizens; what the role of the British state was in those actions; and what exactly the Irish Government did to make sure justice and truth were achieved for families. For years, we have known that families have been fighting for truth and justice in the North of Ireland. In many families now, the original generation has passed on and it is the children who have taken up the campaigns for truth and justice in the North of Ireland. Kenova has exposed, incredibly, the fact that British governments were behind much of the difficulties experienced in the dirty war in the North. The British did not just watch what happened. They were involved in what happened, they participated and they protected their agents who were involved in these actions. Recently, we saw the legacy Act pass through Westminster under the Conservative Party. That legacy Act was the son and heir of the cover-ups that originally happened 30, 40 and 50 years ago, but it was worse because at least 30, 40 or 50 years ago the British Government tried to put blue water between itself, the actions and the cover-up. Now, it is the British Government itself authoring the cover-up of what happened. One of the big problems that exists in that legislation is it allows the British Secretary of State to prevent investigations and inquests. My problem here, and this is important so the Minister might just listen to this one bit of my speech if he can, is that is still in the new legislation. In the new legislation, which is a lot better than the previous legislation, the British Secretary of State can still, for national security reasons, prevent an investigation happening. If the Minister were in court, and another politician had the right to determine whether he had an investigation into what happened, he would be frustrated, he would feel it was wrong and he would say it was not justice. It cannot be allowed that the current legacy Bill going through Westminster will leave a British politician to make a decision over whether there is an investigation. It is not that we do not know what the likely outcome is going to be because the British Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, has already gone to court numerous times to stop an investigation or inquiry into the murder of Sean Brown. The Brown family have been in and out of court, dozens of times at this stage, trying to get an inquiry into what happened to Sean Brown outside Bellaghy football club in the nineties. Yet, now the family has to traipse over to the supreme court in London to fight their case to see if they can get justice. To create legislation that gives a right to a British secretary of state to say "No" to an investigation, when we know this particular individual has already said "No" to investigations, is wrong. This legislation stems from the joint framework document, which is an agreement between the Irish and British Governments. If it proceeds in the manner in which it is going, it will be damaging. I was in Washington DC recently where I spoke to six congressmen and women from the Republican and Democratic Parties about this and they agreed that is a problem with this legislation. There are also concerns about what protections will be given to British army veterans. If those protections are simply that an elderly individual gives evidence at a distance in an electronic format, I do not think people will have difficulty with them. However, we must remember a big section of the British media and political establishment wants to protect their veterans. I saw the Tories came out recently and said there should not be any case where their veterans are prosecuted. We are only looking for the guilty ones to be prosecuted. We do not want the innocent ones to be prosecuted. There is a problem, in that the Irish Government has let the British Government away with this on many occasions. I am thinking about the Glenanne gang especially. The Glenanne gang and British security forces were involved in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the biggest loss of life of the Troubles, which unfolded close to where we are at the moment. In the subsequent investigation in this State, forensics were sent North and disappeared, files went missing and the investigation was closed within ten weeks. Motions have been passed a number of times in this House demanding the British Government make the necessary files on this available and it has refused to do so. Denise Mullen is a former Aontú councillor from Dungannon. At the age of four, she stood at her house while her father was shot dead by the Glenanne gang and the east brigade of the Tyrone UVF. Her father bled out over hours while she was with him. The O'Dowd brothers live beside me in County Meath. Members of their family were murdered by the Glenanne gang. There is an instinct, especially on the part of the Minister's party leader at times, to focus on IRA actions rather than British actions. At times, there is more political benefit in the coffins created by the IRA than those created by the British Government and that is wrong. There should be no difference between victims of the Troubles

Sentiment score: -0.10

All Troubles victims should be fought for equally.

Sentiment score: -0.77