Civilian Deaths (Ballymurphy) Debate
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Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick
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Civilian Deaths (Ballymurphy)
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts(14Â years ago)
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Mark Durkan
I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) first.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
I commend my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I, too, have met the Ballymurphy families in Westminster, at Stormont and in Ballymurphy. I am struck not only by their innocence but by their sheer humility and need to find justice and truth. Does my hon. Friend agree that the activities of the Parachute Regiment must be examined in connection with their use and deployment at the time in Belfast, Derry and throughout Northern Ireland?
Mark Durkan
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Wider questions must be asked of the powers that be, in both military command and political oversight, about how the Parachute Regiment was deployed in Northern Ireland in those days. Clearly, the Parachute Regiment’s behaviour in Ballymurphy should have been factored into the thinking about its future deployment. People should have had that in mind when it was decided to send the Parachute Regiment, specifically, to Derry for Bloody Sunday. Of course, the Parachute Regiment must account not just for the deaths in Derry and Ballymurphy, but for the killing of two innocent Protestants, Mr Johnston and Mr McKinnie, in September 1972 on the Shankill.