To my mind, there is a direct line between the complicity and collusion of the British state and the British Empire with the genocide we have witnessed in Gaza over the past two years and the atrocities that were carried out by its agents, like Freddie Scappaticci committing murder, abducting people and so on while he was a British agent, through to Bloody Sunday and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and, if we want to, we can go right back and draw parallels with the role of the Auxiliaries and the Black and Tans during the Irish Revolution and the very same people being sent to Palestine to back to the Zionist move to partition Palestine. What is the common link? The link is the British Empire being involved in atrocity. The republican movement has questions to answer for sure but I find it interesting that the Irish Government's entire focus in this debate seems to be to score political points against Sinn Féin rather than to be concerned about the profound implications of the fact that the British state was running an agent like Scappaticci who was involved in killing and abducting people. He was protected. The Kenova report reveals the British state's protection of him led to far more deaths than any it might have claimed he was saving by running an agent within the IRA. It still refuses to really own up to the truth of its involvement in all of this, or even to name Scappaticci, in the same way as the victims of the atrocity in Derry on Bloody Sunday are still fighting for justice. They still have not got the truth and accountability they demanded from the British state because it wants to guarantee impunity and to protect the people guilty of atrocities that its agents carry out. Critically, in all of this, and this is the point I really want to make, while Operation Denton, the sort of subdivision of Kenova, is mentioned, there is far less focus from the Government on the fact that the Denton report has not been published. The families of the 34 victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings are absolutely furious about this because it was leaked in October two months before it was due to published. Now, who leaked it? As a result of that, it has still not been published. We know the report indicates that the Dublin and Monaghan bombings - the single biggest atrocity - were carried out by loyalist paramilitaries with the collusion of the British state. The report dealing with that atrocity is still not published and now is in limbo because it is subject to legal action because of the leak. That is why it has not been published when it was supposed to be published. After years of investment the families put into that process, co-operating with Denton, they are now denied the truth and justice they have been seeking for decades. They have no idea now and are left in limbo as to whether they will ever get the truth, justice and accountability. The signs are that they are not going to because is that not the pattern we see? The families of the Bloody Sunday victims got no real truth and accountability. Nobody is ever really held accountable. The British Government still will not even admit the true extent of its involvement with Scappaticci and other atrocities or similarly with the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. There are some very alarming things about this which I am surprised the Government does not highlight. The lawyers of the representatives of the victims of many of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings indicated that MI5 broke into the Denton headquarters while its review was being conducted. That is incredible. Even after all of this, after all of the atrocities, the collusion and the complicity with this kind of dirty tricks stuff, the report was leaked. Who leaked it? Then we have MI5 trying to break into the headquarters of Denton, the body set up to do this. That is just shocking. No expressions of outrage or determination on the part of the Irish Government that we are going to get to the bottom of this. Who received the draft report of Denton? It was the PSNI and the Garda. From what I understand, families think it is unlikely that anybody in Denton leaked the report, so the only other two groups that saw the draft report were the Garda and the PSNI. It was leaked to the Belfast Telegraph two months before it was due to be published and a podcast went out from the Belfast Telegraph about it as well. As a result, the actual report has not been published. The families, who are fighting for truth and justice, are at the centre of all this. The Taoiseach said: "The Government has consistently called for a victim-centred approach to legacy issues." Where is the victim-centred approach to this? The families have no idea when they are going to actually see the report. All the energy of the Government seems to be directed at scoring political points against Sinn Féin instead of at the British Government, the issue of the leaks and the lack of justice, truth and accountability for the victims of the single biggest atrocity, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. I find it extraordinary. There is a pattern, however. With the crimes of the British State and British Empire, there is never accountability. There is always impunity, just like there is for Israel. We also see it here in the Irish State. Can the Irish State please explain to me, or is it even concerned about the fact, that the investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings was shut down after 11 weeks? All of the forensic material relating to the Dublin bombing was sent North to be given to the PSNI when we now know the British were colluding with the loyalist paramilitaries that carried it out. We outsourced responsibility for investigating this to the jurisdiction that we now know was responsible for colluding with the people who carried out the atrocity. The families seem to have a lot of faith in Denton. Whether that is justified or not, I do not know but even there, the investigation is essentially outsourced to another jurisdiction, rather than the Irish State itself taking responsibility for getting to the truth of these things. That leads to the Stardust issue today as well. What is at the heart of the anger that the Stardust families are expressing today is that a promise to engage with them on the process was reneged upon. There was a commitment to a second phase, to it not being a one-size-fits-all approach, to recognising the trauma and suffering and the State's responsibility in exacerbating that trauma and suffering the families are still going through, and the Government managed to do it again. After all the years of fighting for truth, justice and so on, the State insults the Stardust families again with an announcement that reneges on commitments that were made to the families. It is really shocking.

Sentiment score: -0.04