Like Senator O'Mahony and most other Senators, I was probably so outraged by the bombing campaign in Britain in the seventies that notwithstanding my sympathies for people who end up in prison I probably tried, if not consciously then quite subconsciously, to stay away from some of these issues. However, it is to the great credit of the families and friends of the Birmingham six, the Maguires and the Guildford four that as they persisted with their efforts the evidence presented to me and the alternative interpretation of what happened became so convincing, both in terms of the admitted violent assault on the Birmingham six and the ample evidence that the allegedly conclusive forensic evidence was anything but conclusive, as well as the fact that no other evidence was evinced against any of the six persons convicted of the Birmingham bombings, that I was led to the inescapable conclusion that a profound miscarriage of justice resulted.
It is easy to understand why a conviction could have been entered in, in spite of the evidence. Britain must have been a very frightened place in 1974. There had been a considerable number of outrageous bombing attacks. The police must have been under enormous pressure, as must political figures. I have no doubt that figures in the Judiciary respond to that pressure, not consciously or deliberately. I am not implyng any misconduct but they are part of the society they live in. It is evident in our own society in the way members of the Judiciary respond in terms of the penalties they impose to crimes that become more apparent. That was the situation in Britain at that time. There was a need for someone to be convicted.
There is and has been in recent years in Britain a rather unhappy and unhealthy tolerance of a form of racism towards the Irish which it could do without. I found it extraordinary that when the Greater London Council, so ably led by Ken Livingstone, withdrew advertising from a newspaper which they felt to be consistently hostile to the Irish community, the British Press Council took great exception to what they thought was a tremendous interference with the freedom of the press because of the fact that the advertising was withheld.
It was understandable that somebody would be sought to be convicted of these bombings. It is tragic, however, that the understandable public pressure, the understandable sense of outrage and the understandable sense of fear, should have resulted in the conviction of six people who, to anybody looking at it with reasonable detachment from this side of the Irish Sea, seem to be clearly innocent. One of the consequential tragedies that has sprung from that is the fairly substantial evidence of, to put it mildly, a less than helpful attitude on the part of Irish public authorities. The activities of the Irish Embassy in the United States when a United States Congressman took an interest and where rather than confront the evidence, the embassy attempted to undermine the status of the source of the information, Father Raymond Murray, was regrettable to say the least. I would still welcome an attempt by the Minister present to confirm or deny the existence of the letter from the then Ambassador attempting to undermine Father Raymond Murray. At the time nobody was in a position to confirm that this letter was issued; nevertheless, nobody has denied it. I would be interested to know if the letter published in The Sunday Tribune of 3 November 1985 is authentic or is it a concoction or a forgery generated by somebody with presumably less than admiral objectives.
Now that we have got to the stage where we are all concerned, it would help a lot if the Minister could tell us if the Government now accept that the Birmingham Six have been unlawfully convicted. I know they have expressed concern about their convictions, but expressing concern seems to me to be a reasonably large step away from saying they accept that they are innocent. If the Government are prepared to accept that these people are innocent, then the steps they must take consequential on that will have to be very serious. If we accept that in the case of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four that there are at least ten people, not all of them Irish, serving sentences in Britain for offences that they most manifestly did not commit, then a very serious matter of relationships between this country and Britain arises.
Expressions of concern are only one step along the road. What we need now is for the Government to say whether or not they accept that these people are innocent. If they accept that these people are guilty, or do not accept that they are innocent, they should explain to us why they differ from the rest of us, and I think a large spectrum of Irish opinion ranging through Church and political figures including John Hume, Séamus Mallon, the Cardinal and all sorts of people. They should explain why they take a different view from all those people and on what evidence their conclusion is based. If the Government accept that these people are innocent, let them say so clearly and unequivocally. There is the capacity and the possibility of "yes" or "no" here. Do the Government believe that these people were wrongfully convicted?
Without diverting too far, I would like to say that I think that at this stage there is an equally overwhelming case in the case of the Guildford Four. To suggest that the four people, one of whom obviously had a serious drugs problem, were the stuff of a ruthless IRA bombing cell is to push imagination to the limit. The people portrayed in the recent British television programme in connection with the Guildford bombing seem to me to be the direct antithesis of what you would expect for a ruthless IRA bomb squad capable of such co-ordination of activity, speed of response and so on. When the Government begin to make up their mind about people convicted of alleged terrorist offences in Britain they should not ignore the Guildford Four. Even though the Maguires have been released, it does not in any way reduce the need to reconsider their case.
This debate is particularly worth while. It is necessary to accept that even if our Government believe that these people are innocent, even if there is some new evidence and even if, as is the case at present, the Home Office is reconsidering the whole issue, we must remember that very serious matters are at stake for the Government, the police and the Judiciary of the United Kingdom. When Lord Denning was giving judgment on a civil case taken by the Birmingham Six against the police he said:
If the six men win it, it will mean that the police were guilty of perjury, violence and threats, that the confessions were involuntary and were improperly admitted and that the convictions were erroneous. The Home Secretary would have either to recommend that they be pardoned or remit the case to the court of appeal. This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say "it cannot be right that these actions should go further".
That is the quality of the legal opinion about the consequences of reopening these cases. On the other hand, it is true that if these cases which are now under reconsideration are not dealt with favourably now they may never be reopened again. This is probably the most critical time in the history of these cases. If the British Government now choose to decide that there is no reason to reopen the cases, it may well be many years before a situation can arise again in which the cases will be reopened.
Therefore, what we need from the Government at this stage is far more than expressions of concern. The Government should make their position known. Do they believe that these people are innocent? Expressions of concern at this stage do not go half far enough. If the Government believe these people are innocent they may well have to take steps they do not want to take. I sincerely hope that, if the Government have come to the position where they recognise the innocence of these people, we will have no further evidence of the retreat from the capacity to act and think independently that we saw here on another issue of foreign affairs earlier today. Therefore, I appeal to the Government to make their position clear as to whether they believe these people to be innocent and then to take the necessary consequential action on behalf of innocent people, action that most of us at this stage believe should be taken.