I wish to share my time with Deputy Andrews.
Adjournment Debate. - Bloody Sunday Inquiry.
That is agreed.
On the 25th anniversary of the massacre in Derry on Bloody Sunday, it is appropriate that the House should consider the need for truth, justice and the rule of law to prevail for the victims of the British troops. On that day 13 people were killed and one other person died later. Those of us who were presents in the church in Creggan for the funerals recall seeing the coffins at the altar. We felt a sense of grief, agony and pent up anger in the community as it tried to come to terms with the murder of its relations, friends and neighbours. That anger was shared by the nation.
It is agreed by all that the victims were innocent. The British Prime Minister, Mr. John Major, in a letter to Mr. John Hume in 1992 made it clear that the victims were to be considered innocent. Why then were they shot? The British Government established the Widgery Inquiry, a whitewash tribunal, which was nothing but a cover up. Successive Governments have called for the Widgery Inquiry's findings to be quashed and for a new inquiry to be set up.
The case for such an inquiry has been strengthened by the new evidence which has become available recently through Channel 4 television. It gave details from British army witnesses and recordings of radio transmissions which were available to the Widgery Inquiry. Mr. John Hume has succeeded in securing more than 60 signatures from Members of the House of Commons calling for a new inquiry. I support that call on behalf of Fianna Fáil.
The Government should press the British Government to establish a new inquiry into the massacre so that justice may be done. We will not allow the Government to be fobbed off by the British Government. Justice and the memory of the victims demand that we have a new inquiry so that the facts might be made known. If the Government does not succeed in persuading the British Government it should pursue the matter at EU, European Court of Human Rights and UN level and it would have our support.
At that time 25 years ago, I was Parliamentary Secretary to the then Taoiseach, Mr. Jack Lynch, and I attended the funerals in Derry. As democratic politicians trying to save the peace process, it is incumbent on us to prove that the rule of law and the ways and institutions of democratic politics must be seen to be thorough, impartial and above reproach. The Widgery Inquiry was none of these things. It proved to be a farce. At the time I supported it because I thought it was a real tribunal of inquiry led by Lord Widgery. However, I subsequently became aware of the limits of that futile exercise.
It is incumbent on the British Government to reopen the investigation based on the new evidence and to consider the matter a human rights issue, as the Members of the Dáil do unanimously.
I am replying on behalf of the Tánaiste who is unable to be present. I thank the Deputy for providing the House with the opportunity to mark the 25th anniversary of the terrible events in Derry known as "Bloody Sunday". It is correct that this House joins in the commemoration and remembrance of the 14 who died. It is also correct that we recall the trauma of all those directly caught up in the tragic events of that day, particularly those who were wounded and the families of the victims.
Bloody Sunday deeply affected not only those directly involved but a whole generation who found nothing but disillusionment in the events of that day and their subsequent presentation by the authorities — a presentation which many believed was deeply, even perversely, at odds with the facts. The account of Bloody Sunday offered by the Widgery tribunal blighted the cause of peace and reconciliation. The trauma of Bloody Sunday endures as a living legacy of grief for the relatives of those who died. They buried their loved ones but they can find no peace until the imputation of the innocence of the victims contained in the report of the Widgery tribunal is finally and unequivocally expunged from the official account of what happened that day.
The Widgery tribunal remains the official version of events on Bloody Sunday. It was never considered satisfactory either by those who were there or by the Government. Over the years, the Government has supported moves to meet the legitimate concerns of the relatives. It has indicated to the British Government on a number of occasions, including through the framework of the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, that it would welcome any further steps which could be taken to meet these concerns, particularly the demand for a comprehensive and unequivocal statement that the victims were totally innocent, were engaged in peaceful protest and were not involved in violence.
The trauma of Bloody Sunday has recently been powerfully evoked by the publication of a number of the 500 eyewitness accounts given to the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in the days following Bloody Sunday. These were made available at the time to the Widgery tribunal but were not used in any substantive way. Don Mullen, the editor and moving spirit behind the publication of those accounts in his book Bloody Sunday, Eyewitness, has done an immense service to the memory of the victims and the cause of their relatives.
There are many others who have been working to establish the truth of what happened on that day and we have seen in recent days some of the fruits of their endeavours. Their work for truth and justice has been undertaken without partisan interest and driven solely by the need to serve truth and help bring closure to the grief of the victims' relatives. They deserve our commendation and support. Those accounts help us realise the horrendous shock of violence and death, the reverberations of the pain and suffering of families affected by it which never quite fade. It reminds us that the purpose that violence in Northern Ireland often claims is both evil and spurious. Violence serves no purpose other than its own futile perpetuation.
The demand for a new inquiry has been strengthened by the re-evaluation of the significance of the eyewitness statements and other findings contained in Don Mullen's book. Investigations by the media have added to the belief that the Parachute Regiment was not alone in its responsibility for the killings on that day and that at least three of the victims may have died as a result of shots fired from the vicinity of Derry's walls. I understand evidence is emerging that statements made by soldiers to the Widgery tribunal are significantly different from statements they made earlier. These developments are a serious cause for concern in that not only do they add to the widely shared view that the Widgery tribunal was flawed in its methodology and conclusions but, taken together, they point to a radically different version of events.
As my colleague, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Spring, already made clear both yesterday and today, it is incumbent on the British Government to investigate this new information and to do so as quickly as possible, in as thorough a fashion as possible. Questioned on Bloody Sunday today in the House of Commons, the British Prime Minister, John Major, stated "with fresh evidence, of course we will examine it." We will be urging the British Government to act on this specific statement.
The key issue is to redress the injustice done to the victims' families, and to the memory of the victims themselves, by the imputations of the Widgery report. It might be open to the British Government to do this on the basis of new evidence in the public domain, or material privately available to them, without resort to the machinery of an inquiry — the objective is to ensure a just and dignified closure of this terrible chapter, not to relive it or perpetuate the pain and anger it caused. To that end, the Tánaiste made clear his intention to raise the concerns generated by the current re-evaluations of the evidence at the next meeting of the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference and has instructed my officials to make the appropriate arrangements through the Anglo-Irish Secretariat. He will also take the opportunity to discuss this issue with the Secretary of State when they meet in the near future.