Debate contribution: Legacy Cases: Irish Government

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Kelly on 19 May 2026.

MLA: Mr Gerry Kelly
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 19 May 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Legacy Cases: Irish Government
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5550325

Text

First, the Irish Government have not cooperated with the ICRIR because it is not article 2-compliant, as former Irish Government Justice Minister Helen McEntee outlined. Secondly, following the 2023 Tory legacy legislation, there was no reciprocal agreement with the Irish Government on legacy matters such as information sharing and providing evidence. Concerning separate investigative processes in the South, Sinn Féin will shortly produce proposals, with a view to establishing a type of Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) mechanism, which Members may remember from the Stormont House Agreement, to conduct independent investigations in the South. We fully agree that the current legacy Bill has lost the confidence of victims and survivors. Recently, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence heavily criticised the Bill for its retention of an expansive national security veto; a lack of institutional independence; restrictions on access to investigations; a lack of victim participation; a flawed inquisitorial mechanism, which, incidentally, was to replace already existing inquests; and the absence of a thematic or systematic truth mechanism to deal with themes and patterns of abuse. At the meetings that we have had with the Irish Government, we have stressed the need to retain the interstate case in Europe against the existing legacy legislation. Their position has been made clear on a number of occasions, which is that they will wait until the Labour Party's Troubles Bill is finally passed before they make a judgement on whether to pursue that legal challenge in Europe. That is especially important in light of Hilary Benn's stated intention to introduce further legal protections for veterans at the Bill's Committee Stage. With reference to the Dillon case, like the majority of families, we are both disappointed by and dismayed at the recent Supreme Court judgement. Some of the families' legal representatives have also indicated that they intend to bring a legal challenge to Europe. There is no need to develop fresh legacy proposals, as we already have a template that the main parties, including the DUP across the way, and both Governments endorsed in 2014.
Subsequently, it was widely endorsed in an NIO consultation in 2018. However, the British Government refused to implement and legislate for the agreement, despite agreeing to do so within 50 years in the New Decade, New Approach agreement between the Irish Government and the British Government in January 2020. Instead, the Tories decided to do a solo run and introduced a disastrous Legacy Bill in 2023. Dealing with our past has developed into a battle of narratives that we can see here today. All narratives need to be listened to and treated with respect, although we do not necessarily have to agree with all or even any of them. The British Government and political unionism would have us believe that there is only one legitimate narrative, and that is the state narrative of right against wrong and the nationalist/republican community being put down as a terrorist community, harbouring and supporting terrorists. They do not reference their role in establishing partition, the Orange state, structural discrimination, gerrymandering, repression or the Special Powers Act. I could go on and on. Political unionism was the first to introduce the gun into Irish politics in the 20th century, with the formation of the UVF in 1912-13. It then deployed its legal forces with the establishment of the RUC and the A- and B-Specials, followed by the UDR. Its latest illegal army is the Ulster Resistance, even though it does not want to admit it. It was established —
No, I will not give way. It was established by the DUP, and it retains its weapons, as it has not entered into any decommissioning process or the current transition process for paramilitaries.

625 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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