The NI Legacy Bill

[seafoid]

The NI legacy Bill has passed the final legislative  stage in Westminster thanks to the Tory majority. The Bill proposes an effective offer of immunity from prosecution for perpetrators of crimes during the Troubles who co-operate with a truth-recovery body. It would also halt future civil cases and inquests linked to killings during the conflict.

It is even opposed by the DUP.

[trailer]

The NI legacy Bill has passed the final legislative  stage in Westminster thanks to the Tory majority. The Bill proposes an effective offer of immunity from prosecution for perpetrators of crimes during the Troubles who co-operate with a truth-recovery body. It would also halt future civil cases and inquests linked to killings during the conflict.

It is even opposed by the DUP.

A terrible day for victims and campaigners.
Love the hypocrisy of both SF and the DUP who now condemn this legislation even though they tried to slip such a deal through in 2005 only for the SDLP's Mark Durkan to blow its cover. Wheeling out John Finucane was "chef's kiss"

However there will be no justice for victims from either side anyway, the British government isn't going to come clean and tell all that they know and certainly the IRA won't. Victims get bogged down in endless court cases looking for answers. The age profile means many victims and campaigners are already dead and in a few years all will be gone. Surely some of the next generation will try to get answers but people will move on. We can already see this in how many of todays youth who weren't even born in the troubles now view the IRA, RUC, UDA/UVF etc.

[Eamonnca1]

SF: "Release the POWs! The war is over!"
Also SF: "Hey now, when are we going to get some justice for the victims here?"

[general_lee]

Forget political parties and their contradictions.
You either think victims relatives have a right to justice or you don't.

[Milltown Row2]

Forget political parties and their contradictions.
You either think victims relatives have a right to justice or you don't.

Where does it stop though? Over 3000 deaths not sure of the break down but how many were convicted and are we looking justice for all those that didn't go through the courts or that in this dirty stinking war all sides used dirty underhand tactics to murder people?

There were no ok murders and not one murder in those years has actually brought us any further, as we are still attached to the UK and with SF now in cahoots with the government for 25 years  we will actually just get a UI because of a head count!!

Was it worth it and dragging up the past all the time will that solve anything? A truth commission would have been the best way forward

[LC]

Forget political parties and their contradictions.
You either think victims relatives have a right to justice or you don't.

Where does it stop though? Over 3000 deaths not sure of the break down but how many were convicted and are we looking justice for all those that didn't go through the courts or that in this dirty stinking war all sides used dirty underhand tactics to murder people?

There were no ok murders and not one murder in those years has actually brought us any further, as we are still attached to the UK and with SF now in cahoots with the government for 25 years  we will actually just get a UI because of a head count!!

Was it worth it and dragging up the past all the time will that solve anything? A truth commission would have been the best way forward

Agree fully.

I would imagine the legal professional will also be very disappointed, a big income stream in fees now no longer.

[Eire90]

nolan probably be boring people to death talking about this every day for next year same as crawley

[restorepride]

Forget political parties and their contradictions.
You either think victims relatives have a right to justice or you don't.

Where does it stop though? Over 3000 deaths not sure of the break down but how many were convicted and are we looking justice for all those that didn't go through the courts or that in this dirty stinking war all sides used dirty underhand tactics to murder people?

There were no ok murders and not one murder in those years has actually brought us any further, as we are still attached to the UK and with SF now in cahoots with the government for 25 years  we will actually just get a UI because of a head count!!

Was it worth it and dragging up the past all the time will that solve anything? A truth commission would have been the best way forward

The truth from the Brits?  Some chance of that!  It isn't dragging up the past, it is the present for many communities and families.

[Wildweasel74]

The problem is so many previously investigated deaths were so badly done, or men getting off, that 30+ yrs later it's hard to imagine how a soldier shooting a lad in the bck for just running away gets off with it, or how the f**k the Shankill butchers run round so long and not got, or Jean Mc Conville disappearance and murder never got the justice they required. Too many people, especially on here, are not old enough to remember the shit that went on, and it shows in voting patterns.

[Milltown Row2]

Forget political parties and their contradictions.
You either think victims relatives have a right to justice or you don't.

Where does it stop though? Over 3000 deaths not sure of the break down but how many were convicted and are we looking justice for all those that didn't go through the courts or that in this dirty stinking war all sides used dirty underhand tactics to murder people?

There were no ok murders and not one murder in those years has actually brought us any further, as we are still attached to the UK and with SF now in cahoots with the government for 25 years  we will actually just get a UI because of a head count!!

Was it worth it and dragging up the past all the time will that solve anything? A truth commission would have been the best way forward

The truth from the Brits?  Some chance of that!  It isn't dragging up the past, it is the present for many communities and families.

People still waiting on the truth for the disappeared

[general_lee]

The whole point of the legacy bill is so that the Brits don't have to tell the truth. Some families don't even want prosecutions, they just want their day in court where the facts can be put on record.

[seafoid]

The whole point of the legacy bill is so that the Brits don't have to tell the truth. Some families don't even want prosecutions, they just want their day in court where the facts can be put on record.

The Stardust process shows that the ordinary relatives of people who die in ignored tragedies have a huge need to be heard and respected by authority. They want answers.  Some part of the pain can be closed off.  Without that, the senseless  deaths of those close to them just create more suffering. The Stardust was brutal but in the North far more people died.

Stardust :

"They describe being "fobbed off" through the decades. The "not knowing" – why the fire started, why it engulfed the venue so catastrophically, why their loved ones died – exacerbated and prolonged their trauma. Numerous portraits spoke of "heartbreak" at parents and siblings dying without being afforded the dignity and respect of answers."

A Disused Shed in Co Wexford by Derek Mahon is a popular poem in Ireland and was voted inside the top 50 of Ireland's favourite poems by readers of the Irish Times in 1999.

The poem has a dark, eerie tone, and is about a man in his shed sitting and thinking.
A Disused Shed in Co Wexford by Derek Mahon.

Even now there are places where a thought might grow —
Peruvian mines, worked out and abandoned
To a slow clock of condensation,
An echo trapped forever, and a flutter
Of wildflowers in the lift-shaft,
Indian compounds where the wind dances
And a door bangs with diminished confidence,
Lime crevices behind rippling rainbarrels,
Dog corners for bone burials;
And a disused shed in Co. Wexford,

Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel,
Among the bathtubs and the washbasins
A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole.
This is the one star in their firmament
Or frames a star within a star.
What should they do there but desire?
So many days beyond the rhododendrons
With the world waltzing in its bowl of cloud,
They have learnt patience and silence
Listening to the rooks querulous in the high wood.

They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
of the expropriated mycologist.
He never came back, and light since then
Is a keyhole rusting gently after rain.
Spiders have spun, flies dusted to mildew
And once a day, perhaps, they have heard something —
A trickle of masonry, a shout from the blue
Or a lorry changing gear at the end of the lane.


There have been deaths, the pale flesh flaking
Into the earth that nourished it;
And nightmares, born of these and the grim
Dominion of stale air and rank moisture.
Those nearest the door growing strong —
'Elbow room! Elbow room!'
The rest, dim in a twilight of crumbling
Utensils and broken flower-pots, groaning
For their deliverance, have been so long
Expectant that there is left only the posture.

A half century, without visitors, in the dark —
Poor preparation for the cracking lock
And creak of hinges. Magi, moonmen,
Powdery prisoners of the old regime,
Web-throated, stalked like triffids, racked by drought
And insomnia, only the ghost of a scream
At the flashbulb firing squad we wake them with
Shows there is life yet in their feverish forms.
Grown beyond nature now, soft food for worms,
They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith.

They are begging us, you see, in their wordless way,
To do something, to speak on their behalf
Or at least not to close the door again.
Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii!
'Save us, save us,' they seem to say,
'Let the god not abandon us
Who have come so far in darkness and in pain.
We too had our lives to live.
You with your light meter and relaxed itinerary,
Let not our naive labours have been in vain!'

[restorepride]

The whole point of the legacy bill is so that the Brits don't have to tell the truth. Some families don't even want prosecutions, they just want their day in court where the facts can be put on record.

Exactly.

[imtommygunn]

Exactly. Not to be trusted in any way shape or form. Brexit shenanigans showing the rest of the world this too.

[Milltown Row2]

The whole point of the legacy bill is so that the Brits don't have to tell the truth. Some families don't even want prosecutions, they just want their day in court where the facts can be put on record.

Exactly.

Be careful what you wish for.. When/if the truth comes out about how deaths could have been prevented by 'our own' there would be plenty of red faces about with a lot of explaining to do..