Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Past

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Eight minutes of brevity, Dame Siobhain. I will try and squeeze it into eight minutes, but it will be difficult. I am very pleased to be here. I thank the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and particularly the Chair, the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), for her hard work on this topic, which is a complex issue with numerous concerns. I understand that it is impossible to please everyone, but we must always please the tenets of truth and justice. I do not believe that this has been achieved. I say that with great respect to the Committee and the Secretary of State.

The hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) has just reminded us of the murder of the two corporals. I remember where I was: it was Saturday, I was sitting watching the TV, and it felt like a film, but the brutality and violence of the despicable murder of those two soldiers was happening in real life.

My party has deep concerns that the Government have chosen to press ahead with their intent to restore provision for inquests without a fundamental appraisal of how the coronial system in Northern Ireland approaches troubles-related cases, specifically the actions of the security forces.

One need only to look at the disgraceful coroner’s report on the Clonoe inquest, where the coroner exceeded his remit by questioning the honest belief of ex-SAS soldiers during the 1992 ambush, where four IRA members were killed after attacking Coalisland Royal Ulster Constabulary station. That disgracefully politically motivated overreach of the coroner merely confirmed the view that those inquests are not designed to meet the obligations of truth and justice, but can ignore the actions of the terrorists and make victim-makers into victims.

The Government have taken no steps to rectify the system that allowed the Clonoe inquiry to report as it did, and therefore the right-thinking people of Northern Ireland—those who lived through the troubles: my generation and my parents’ generation—have no faith in the system, which they believe exists as a sop to terrorism, aiming to rewrite the evils we lived through as though they were understandable and excusable. Ask those burnt at La Mon, whose scars receive medical attention to this day, if they understand or excuse the bomb that murdered innocent people. If God spares me and I get home in time, I will be at the La Mon Hotel tonight, and it will be a reminder of what happened there.

The balance in the focus of investigations towards members of the security forces is in itself a barrier to fairness. Inquest proceedings have often enabled legal representatives to use high-profile public hearings to aggressively examine witnesses, including ageing veterans, and to push spurious and unchallenged narratives of the troubles.

The Democratic Unionist party does not agree that legal aid should be provided to the next of kin in an inquest —nor does it agree with the form of what Government have called “enhancing inquisitorial proceedings”, the bulk of which will focus on state involvement—but not to witnesses to those proceedings, or to those seeking answers and redress for their loved ones via legacy investigations. Many families bereaved through terrorism faced the ignominy of tick-box inquests, with little in the way of information provided and no state funded legal representation. That should not be compounded by sustaining a deep inequality in how inquests are dealt with going forward.

Subsequently, we cannot and will not support this approach, which gives power and funding to those who wish to paint blood on to the hands of RUC and service personnel who were held to account at the time and since, and yet allow republicans to be painted in glowing colours of glory. That is unbearable, and we will not ask our people to bear it. Neither can we allow to go unchallenged the repeated refusal of the Irish Government to admit their collusion, and continuing to be a haven of safety for republican terrorists, who knew they could skip across the border and not a question would be asked, not a car would be searched, and not a murderer of babies and women would be held to account.

I remember the murder of those two superintendents that the hon. Member for South Antrim referred to. Superintendents Breen and Buchanan were murdered by the IRA on the border. They had been at a meeting in the Republic of Ireland, when, coming back up north, the two of them were blown up at the border. This question has often been posed, and I pose it again today. The Garda Síochána had a mole who gave the information, the intelligence, to the IRA who then murdered those two guys at the border. The Republic of Ireland—forgive me for pointing the finger—has a case to answer in relation to those two men. They were murdered because they were RUC personnel, and yet the Garda Síochána never had an inquiry into the intelligence breakdown, or compassion for the families. I make that case.

I also make a case for Daniel McCormick and Kenneth Smyth—people might know that Kenneth Smyth was my cousin—murdered in December ’71. I also think of Lexie Cummings, murdered in Strabane. The people who murdered him escaped across the border. Where did the people who murdered Winston Donnell, the first UDR man ever to be killed, go? Across the border. Why did they go to the border? Because they could get away with it. I want accountability, so let us make the Garda Síochána and the Republic of Ireland accountable in this process. We hear about collusion in the RUC and the armed forces, with spurious allegations put forward, and yet the truth that the dogs on the street know about the Garda Síochána and the Irish Government is their shelter of murderers, and that is left as just the way things are. Well, that is not for me, and not for anyone else.

I remind the Westminster Hall Chamber that my family knows at first hand about that collusion, and we understand it. We know about the future of Unionists in the Republic of Ireland—it is a dark, cold and unforgiving place for Unionists. I hope they are listening down in the Republic of Ireland, because that is how my people see it. That is how my family felt, who left there to go north, because that was where they had a future. There was no future for my family, for my mum and dad, and those others from the Republic of Ireland who came north.

That is why any form of Irish co-operation with any inquiries can only begin with sincere apologies. Let us get those apologies. Let the Republic of Ireland apologise to us for giving sanctuary, security and a haven to those murdering scum that they were. That is what I want to hear about. Any form of Irish co-operation with any inquiries can only begin when that happens, and when we get some information leading to the prosecution of murders. Until that day comes, there can be, and should be, no co-operation with those whose hands are as bloody as some, such as Gerry “I was never in the IRA, by the way” Adams—we know him, as he is the one.

I said at the outset of my comments that we cannot satisfy everyone, but we must satisfy truth and justice. My mother was about truth and justice, always about what is right. This approach does neither, and merely further alienates the true victims of the troubles. That is why we ask any right-thinking Member of this House to refuse to allow legislation to pass that lets the murder of two unborn children in Omagh be painted as part of a glorious cause. It was not—it was evil and wicked. We stood for many years against that evil in Northern Ireland, so I stand against it today, together with others in this House. It cannot be permitted. I ask all Members present to join me and others in satisfying truth and justice, which is what it is always about. Eight minutes is almost done, so thank you, Dame Siobhain, for giving me the chance to speak for that wee bit longer.