Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 (Remedial) Order 2024

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Time is not on our side. We all have a duty to seek justice for victims. I cannot support the regret Motion before the House tonight.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, Northern Ireland has a unique past, and we cannot ignore the contemporary importance of that when we seek to provide reconciliation and justice to the bereaved, the injured and the deceased. We in the DUP have an approach to dealing with the past that includes our test for future proposals. First, there can be no amnesty for wrongdoing or wrongdoers; secondly, there should never be any equivalence between the innocent victim of terrorism and the perpetrator; and, thirdly, the door to justice must remain open through a system of investigations that is fair and reflects the fact that paramilitary and terrorist organisations were responsible for the vast majority of deaths during the Troubles. If anyone wants to look at the figures they will come up with a figure like 90%, but the 90% are seldom talked about. It is always the 1% or 2% of the security forces who seem to get all the attention, for reasons that are right out over my head.

Every family deserves a fair and full investigation into the death of their loved one. Equally, vexatious investigations into former soldiers and members of the security forces are unjustified and must stop. It is difficult to consider justice in respect of Northern Ireland when, still to this very day, one of the leading parties that occupy the post of First Minister continues to perpetuate the invalidation of the justice process. We recently saw myriad tributes from Sinn Féin for the Irish republican killer Bik McFarlane. We watched as John Finucane, Gerry Adams and Gerry Kelly gathered in Belfast to remember a man who Mary Lou McDonald said had

“lived his life in pursuit of freedom, peace and equality”.

If anything was a misquote, that certainly was it. She ought to bow her head in shame and she needs to be called out on it. He

“lived his life in pursuit of freedom, peace and equality”,

but he did not give the same right to his victims—not a chance. No noble Lord would be so deceived as to believe that the murder of five people, including a 17 year-old girl, and the murdering of a great many others, were done in the pursuit of freedom, peace and equality. That is why we must always call out the glorification of terrorism as we seek to bring justice to the bereaved.

The Government’s proposed remedial order rightly negates the abhorrent immunity provisions legislated for by the last Government, and we wholeheartedly support that. Likewise, we welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has acted out of the moral imperative that the Government have to protect the memory of innocent victims rather than out of acceptance of the Court of Appeal’s interpretation of Article 2 of the Windsor Framework.

It is apparent that the courts and statutory rights bodies have wrongly taken an expansive approach to interpreting Article 2 of the protocol, which deals with “no diminution of rights”. This has constrained the UK Government in legislating for Northern Ireland as in the rest of the UK on fundamental issues such as immigration. To accept the Court of Appeal’s specific finding on this would open the door to the further erosion of the principles that underpin our constitutional position within the United Kingdom and the sovereignty of our national parliament in reserved matters. For exactly the same reason, we support the Government’s appeal in respect of the Court of Appeal’s finding with regard to non-disclosure on national security grounds and the involvement of next of kin in inquests or investigations.

The Government’s remedial order does not seek to abolish the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery. In fact, the Secretary of State has indicated an intention to bring forward reforms aimed at improving the independence and operation of the body. We will wait and see. This begs a question. If the Government believe that the ICRIR remains capable of providing human rights-compliant investigations into Troubles deaths, why was it not deemed appropriate for the Finucane family? Ultimately, there can be no hierarchy of victims—except in the case of the Finucane family.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has highlighted that the proposed remedial order does not address all issues of incompatibility with the ECHR, as determined by the Court of Appeal. In some respects, that is true. However, the Government have committed to separately bringing forward primary legislation to deal with a number of elements, in addition to appealing specific findings on disclosure and the Windsor Framework. This is an ongoing process. The question we politely pose to the noble Baroness is why she believes the process should be rushed. As a party, we would be deeply concerned with any legislative intent to restore provision for inquests—particularly beyond those that had already commenced prior to the implementation of the current Act—without a fundamental reappraisal of how the coronial system in Northern Ireland approaches Troubles-related cases and, specifically, the actions of members of the security forces.

The Clonoe inquest findings have reignited an anger and alienation among veterans, innocent victims and the wider community in Northern Ireland. There is a disbelief that the actions of the SAS that day could be construed as anything other than a reasonable and justified response to the threat to life posed by heavily armed PIRA terrorists. Moreover, it seems that the wider context in which the security forces were operating at that time, as well as the prior actions of the deceased men just moments prior to their deaths, were not given fulsome consideration as part of the inquest process. That, to our mind, demonstrates a fundamental weakness in the coronial process which ought to be addressed, substantively, prior to giving consideration to restoring inquests.

This simply does not add up when we consider the ruling handed out last April by the coroner in respect of the Coagh murders of June 1991. The ruling heard that the SAS soldiers were justified in their use of lethal force because:

“The use of force by the soldiers was, in the circumstances they believed them to be, reasonable”.


It was believed that these three men—all members of the murderous East Tyrone Brigade of the IRA—were en route to murder a member of the security forces. Yet in respect of Clonoe, we are seeing a blatant attempt to rewrite the historical narrative. This is retraumatising our veterans of the security forces, who put their lives on the line against a terrorist cabal. Now they watch in horror as they are being prosecuted for the actions they took to protect their fellow servicemen and their country.

Similarly, in respect of police complaints, the apparent chasm in accountability for the failings of the current Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland—who has been found by the courts to have overstepped the mark in alleging “collusive behaviour” against RUC officers in recent times—must not be ignored by the Government if real progress is to be made in ensuring that legacy investigations do not vexatiously target former police officers or soldiers or otherwise retrofit the events of the past to suit a particular political narrative.

We must ensure that there is never a targeted nor a mendacious approach to legacy issues in Northern Ireland which indiscriminately blames the security forces. Those brave people valiantly gave their lives for the safety of our communities. We must turn our attention to the likes of Bik McFarlane, who is so glorified and extolled by Sinn Féin. There are many families in Northern Ireland who every day wake up without someone who should have been with them today; instead, they were murdered by terrorists—who still have not been brought to justice.

The Dublin Government need to stand up and take their responsibility. We have an inquiry in Omagh; the bomb that killed all those people in Omagh was manufactured in the Irish Republic and transported from the Irish Republic, yet the Government of the Irish Republic say they have nothing to answer for. Not half they haven’t. There is not a soul in Northern Ireland, or the whole of Ireland for that matter, who believes that. They need to stand up and accept their responsibilities.