Member's statement: Legacy: Explosives

Member's statement by Mr Jon Burrows on 5 May 2026.

MLA

Mr Jon Burrows

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

5 May 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Legacy: Explosives

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5524361

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The scale and duration of violence during the Troubles demands not only remembrance but rigorous examination. Regrettably, that examination has been lopsided. All violence was wrong, but, too often, history has been rewritten north of the border and untold south of the border. For more than two decades, over 10,000 explosive devices were deployed across Northern Ireland and Great Britain, mainly by the Provisional IRA. That bombing campaign destroyed infrastructure, cost billions of pounds and destroyed lives. The question of who armed the Provisional IRA before Semtex arrived from Libya has never been asked. Evidence presented at Westminster and the Houses of the Oireachtas over many years has pointed to the loss, theft and diversion of commercial-grade explosives from a factory in the Irish Republic. The concerns were not isolated; they were raised repeatedly. However, no action was taken on the loss of explosive material from that factory. A former colleague of mine has spent years researching evidential and archival material from the 1970s and 1980s, and it shows that a very substantial proportion of the high explosives that were in the hands of the IRA and that were recovered by the security forces from either undetonated devices or searches originated from a single source: the Irish Industrial Explosives facility in Enfield, County Meath. The security forces in Northern Ireland have been accused of collusion simply for missing a piece of intelligence or not having the opportunity to interview one witness, yet, over many years, tons of commercial explosives from a factory in the Republic of Ireland end up in the murderous hands of the IRA. That issue was raised multiple times, and little or no action was taken. Why is that? The scale of the leak of explosives is vast. In 1973, 1974 and 1982, it is clear, if you review Hansard, that all gelignite recovered by the security forces emanated from that factory in the Republic of Ireland. This is a matter of profound public importance. It goes to the heart of how the IRA sustained its bombing campaign. Our victims need the truth. Human rights lawyers have used endless inquiries that have lined the pockets of a small number of solicitors in Northern Ireland, yet Dublin has not instigated any inquiry into those bombs that originated from the Irish Republic. The UK Government's handling of legacy has been disgraceful. They have allowed history to be rewritten; they have allowed terrorists to turn the tables on the honourable men who served; they have been led by the Dublin Government; and they have had rings run round them by republican lawfare. I now ask that the Government take steps to find out why explosives came from Irish Industrial Explosives without checks.

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

Assessment

Uncertain: weak signal Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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