Bloody Sunday Inquiry (Report)

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak so early in the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a privilege to follow not only my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State but his predecessor in Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Mr Woodward), who worked tirelessly to try to resolve the issues there. I want to contribute to the debate not because I was an adult or serving in the armed forces at the time of Bloody Sunday; I was not even one-year old at the time. In a sense, it is just a memory. However, I confronted its legacy on the streets of Northern Ireland as a platoon commander and as an intelligence officer in the 1990s. I witnessed the pressures as a platoon commander on the streets of west Belfast, and I also witnessed the embryonic stages of the peace process in 1994, under the Conservative Government of the time. That does not seem to be mentioned much these days, but it was an important turning point for Northern Ireland, because of the steps taken not only by the Government but by the Provisional IRA, which did not come easy to that organisation at the time.

I want to put the Bloody Sunday inquiry into context, because it is important to remember that there were deaths before Bloody Sunday. The troubles in Northern Ireland did not begin and end on 30 January 1972. There were 215 deaths during the troubles leading up to Bloody Sunday, and we cannot forget that there were violent deaths in the Irish civil war and the border campaigns of the 1950s. Violent deaths were characteristic of Ireland, not just in the north, for perhaps hundreds of years. We should not forget that they did not start and stop with Bloody Sunday.

I also want to remember the victims of Northern Ireland. There were 1,855 civilian deaths and 1,123 security forces deaths, of which 2,057 were caused by republican paramilitary groups, and 363 by British security forces, as well as 1,000 by loyalist terror groups. All had a part to play in the troubles in Northern Ireland, and all had a part to play in the tragedies that have been left behind after those events.

I listened to the shadow Secretary of State’s call for perhaps never-ending inquiries. We should not forget that the death of each of those victims is as important to their family members as those of the Bloody Sunday victims. Their loss and suffering count as much to them as Bloody Sunday counts to the media and to the wider strategic goals of the political parties in Northern Ireland. Many of those people might want an inquiry, although perhaps not a sophisticated, expensive one. They might not yet have all the answers. They might not know why their loved one was singled out to be murdered. They want to know why their innocent brother or sister went out shopping one day and did not come back. They want to know who perpetrated those atrocities, and why they have never been held to account.

There are plenty of famous atrocities—dare I link the two words?—in Northern Ireland that probably mean nothing to most people. Bloody Sunday is one of the most memorable ones to people outside the Northern Irish and Irish struggle bubble, but there was also Claudy, Bloody Friday and Warrenpoint. They are famous incidents that all Northern Ireland Members will never forget. It is a characteristic of the Irish troubles that we have these great tragic events throughout history, and it has gone on for many years.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The hon. Gentleman rightly refers to many of the landmark atrocities in Northern Ireland. Does he agree that four of them have a particular link: Bloody Sunday, Ballymurphy, Springhill and Shankill? The link is that they were all perpetrated by the Parachute Regiment. Should not somebody be looking at that?

[Mr Wallace]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s points. Regiments are always living things: they come and go; different leaders take over and different soldiers join. The Scots Guards, of which I was a member, is a very different regiment from the Scots Guards when it was founded in 1642—ironically, to go to Northern Ireland. Regiments come and go, and it is too easy to put a beret on the problem and say that it is all due to the Parachute Regiment. I know my own prejudices, but they are not factual prejudices. It is too easy to link the problem to one regiment or another. I say that it was mainly a problem of ethos—ethos in our politicians, who sometimes sent the wrong messages; ethos in paramilitary units, or even in political parties that often chose to manipulate the people they were supposed to represent.

As I said earlier, I was not serving in the armed forces on Bloody Sunday, as I was just one-year old, but I have met people on the streets of Northern Ireland who were inspired by it—inspired to defend their communities, inspired to take up arms or, indeed, inspired to enter into terrorist organisations. I have met people who were manipulated by what happened and manipulated by some political parties that used every atrocity to feed another atrocity. Murder begets murder; injustice begets injustice.

This inquiry is about one atrocity, but if it is about drawing a line in the sand, it is about saying that an injustice took place. People in the armed forces, particularly its members on that day, are sorry for what they did. We as a Government are sorry about how we dealt with the troubles in the past. However, we must also remember that there were attacks after attacks after attacks. That is why we should put Bloody Sunday in context. The report says that paramilitary activities were taking place on that day. The official IRA fired the second shot and the Provisional IRA was active with weapons in the city on that day. That does not excuse at all or in any way the behaviour of the soldiers on that day, but we should not forget that, in the end, this was an environment into which many people came untrained, ill aware of what they were being asked to do and perhaps led by the wrong leaders. That might be a criticism that we can strongly lay at the door of the Parachute Regiment on that day.

It is not for me, nearly 40 years later, to judge individual soldiers. What we should not forget—this is why the activity of paramilitaries on that day does not detract from what is right or wrong—is that every soldier is responsible for what he or she does down the end of a barrel of a gun. It is their responsibility—the individual’s responsibility and that of the junior ranks of local leaders—to realise that, in the end, their actions have consequences.

Having been a platoon commander in Iraq, I have been frightened. I know what it is like to sit behind barbed wire and concrete bunkers. It very quickly becomes “them and us”. It is easy to dehumanise the community outside the front gate. It is very easy if you are spat at, shouted at and abused, to go back with your men, your soldiers and your team and describe the situation as them and us. That is not an excuse for a platoon commander, a company commander or a commanding officer to say, “All bets are off; all rules can be ignored”. That is simply not right. We are there as officers and leaders of men to protect the weak, to uphold discipline and ensure decency on the street—irrespective of whether the communities are Catholic or Protestant. That is our job.

I could not go to Northern Ireland and undo history. That was not my job at 20 years of age. I was not going to allow myself to be blamed for history—something about which we need to be careful when it comes to the Saville inquiry. We cannot blame other generations and undo it as if it were an easy thing to do on “The X Factor”, for example. I knew, however, that if I stood by decency on the streets and did what was right by the people I was there to protect, we would go some way to ensuring peace.

What is very important from my point of view is that we carried the yellow card, which set out the rules of engagement on the streets of Northern Ireland. It is a good document; it has been finessed over the years, but remains a good document. It is interesting that the Saville report clearly says that no soldier involved in the shootings on that day would have had the authority to open fire if they had followed the yellow card issued to them for dealing with the troubles even at that time. These are good rules of engagement: they are clear and fair and require every soldier to take aimed shots. We should not ignore or excuse the facts by claiming that the environment or the context detracts from the responsibility of our soldiers. It is also the case that the same does not detract from the responsibility of paramilitaries. Every terrorist in Northern Ireland must take responsibility for what they did with a bomb, what they did with a rifle and what they did when they intimidated their communities.

I would like to pay tribute to the Social Democratic and Labour party in Northern Ireland, which throughout the troubles recognised the consequence of violence. Throughout it all, its members spoke up in communities where they themselves were intimidated by other republican parties that felt that they could use peace on the one hand, but could use violence on the other. We should not neglect to pay tribute to the parties that pursued peace on both sides throughout the peace agreement.

The real issue is the future. The former Secretary of State came to the Dispatch Box today to speak about the past. That is interesting, as when he was Secretary of State he rarely mentioned the Finucane or other inquiries and rarely raised issues about the past, which now seems to have come to the forefront. The real challenge is for the future and it revolves around whether we are going to move forward and accept devolution. Will Northern Ireland one day be prepared for a Sinn Fein First Minister? Other real questions are how to deal with dissidents and when we will say goodbye to the past.

We can argue about whether we should have one more inquiry, or two more, or four more, or five more or 10 more, but at the end of the day it will come down to three or four main points: paramilitaries killed innocent people; soldiers sometimes got involved in unlawful killings; and the innocent people of Northern Ireland suffered. How many more inquiries are just going to repeat the same points? The future is what counts—and that means peace, which is the only thing that will wash away the blood.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As the MP for Foyle, for the city of Derry, I welcome the fact that we are having this debate on the Saville report, as was promised. I appreciate the many contributions that we have heard. I do not agree with some of what has been said, but it is important that this House, having established the inquiry, should take the proper time to debate and reflect on the report.

It is important, even on this day, to remember that we are talking about an event that took the lives of 13 people on the day and one more later. We should remember them by name: Gerald Donaghey, 17; John Young, 17; Michael Kelly, 17; Kevin McElhinney, 17; Jack Duddy, 17; Hugh Gilmour, 17; William Nash, 19; Michael McDaid, 20; James Wray, 22; William McKinney, 26; Gerard McKinney, 35; Patrick Doherty, 32; Bernard McGuigan, 41; and John Johnston, 55, who died later.

We should also remember that people were injured that day—again, innocent people. They were Damien Donaghey, Michael Bridge, Alana Burke, Michael Quinn, Patrick O’Donnell, Patrick McDaid, Alexander Nash, Margaret Deery, Michael Bradley, Patrick Campbell, Joseph Mahon, Joseph Friel, Daniel Gillespie and Daniel McGowan.

When we talk about these events, it is important that we do not talk just about an inquiry and a process of reports. It is important that we remember other victims, as hon. Members have reminded us. It should be recalled that on 15 June the Bloody Sunday families, as well as celebrating the verdict in the Saville report of the innocence of their loved ones, and as well as celebrating the articulate and compelling apology that was given by the Prime Minister in the House, took time to remember all the victims of the troubles. They did not think just of themselves. They did not think that they were the only ones who had been denied justice and truth, or that they were the only ones who had suffered in the bitter troubles that we have gone through. That needs to be remembered, in case some of us in the political arena turn this, unfairly and falsely, into an occasion for “what-aboutery”.

Many people have offered assessments of the Saville inquiry. I commend to Members an assessment of the Saville report—that is what it is called—produced last week by the International League for Human Rights. In particular, I commend the work of two respected human rights lawyers, Bob Muse and Jack Bray. Interestingly, back in 1972 the league did an assessment of the Widgery report as well. The assessments examined both in their time, and examined the evidence that was available then and now. They are not very long reports but they make compelling reading.

It is important for the House to remember that there are many other questions arising from the Saville report, so I join my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) in asking the Minister, when he replies, to tell us what has become of the report that was to be prepared by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Secretary of State for Defence and given to the Prime Minister. Has that report been prepared? Are there other reports and will they be shared with the House and the wider public?

It is not enough for the present Government to say, “A lot of the questions that arise from Saville are not questions for us.” People might say that the question of prosecutions will fall to the prosecuting authorities in Northern Ireland—to the police and the Public Prosecution Service. There is also the issue of whether there are to be prosecutions here in relation to any perjury that may have been committed when the inquiry took evidence here in London.

The question of the inquests is now a devolved matter. Many years ago the inquests that took place could deliver only an open verdict. That was all they could do. Now, in the light of what has become available by means of the Saville report, the families are clear that they want to see that issue addressed. I know that that will have to be followed through other channels, not just here in the House.

I have listened carefully to what other Members said, and I noted that the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) made the point that one of the problems with an inquiry into events so long ago was the difficulty of memories failing. I do not know whether, when he said that, he had in mind the case of General Sir Mike Jackson, who gave evidence twice at the inquiry. The first time he was in the witness box, in April 2003, he failed to mention that within hours of the shooting he was the person who wrote the account that became the received state version—effectively, the official version—of what happened. When he was back in October 2003, he agreed that he had provided such an account. He also said that he had written out the accounts of the shooting by the commander of 1 Para, Derek Wilford, of the commanders of each of the three companies deployed and of the battalion intelligence officer. He said that he wrote their accounts—that that was what he prepared—but in evidence, none of those officers remembered any such thing happening. The question arises whether he came up with the whole narrative himself. Was he the webmaster at the heart of a syndicated deceit that became the propaganda version—to use the words of the Prime Minister in his conversation with Lord Widgery—that went out through British embassies and the British media on the night of Bloody Sunday and in the days after, and again in the Widgery tribunal?

What happened with Widgery and with that relentless misrepresentation of the events of Bloody Sunday, which involved not just the Army and the soldiers who were there on the day but all sorts of agents of the British Government and the British state, was that lies were erected on stilts and they strutted the world to crush the innocent name of the victims of Bloody Sunday, who died marching for justice in their own streets and offering no violence.

When lies are erected on stilts in that way, dismantling them unfortunately means that a judicial inquiry, a proper, thorough judicial inquiry, was needed. Given all the circumstances, that was going to take time and money. I wish it did not take as much money and that it did not take as long, and I know that many of the families do, too, so let us get some of these things into perspective.

Questions also arise for the Government regarding the Saville report. If they are taking full responsibility—we have heard that phrase used—what are the consequences of that responsibility? Is it just a case of the articulate apology in this Chamber that was so well received in the Guildhall square in Derry? Was that enough? Does that mean that it is over? Are there other questions to be asked?

What of the position of the Parachute Regiment? They were not just involved in Bloody Sunday; as other hon. Members have mentioned, there was Ballymurphy and Springhill. Let us remember that in September 1972 there was Shankill, where the paratroopers again killed two innocent Protestant men. In a poignant irony, one was called McKinnie and one was called Johnston—names that appear in the list of the innocent dead in Derry as well.

Is anybody going to look at what was going on with the Parachute Regiment and its use and deployment? Many of us, when we look at the Saville report, welcome the clear findings on the events of that day and the detailed findings on each and every one of the shootings that took place. We feel that Saville left other questions perhaps not fully accounted for. Should people have known what was going to happen as a consequence of the deployment of the paratroopers that day? If John Hume—and, as evidence now shows, officers of the British Army at the time—had serious worries about the paratroopers, given what had happened in Magilligan, should nobody in charge in government and no commanding officers have had any worries or anxieties about their deployment?

It is quite clear that the RUC senior officer in Derry at the time had serious qualms not just about the Paras being brought in but about the tactics and approach that were being used. His concerns were brushed aside. In the debate in the other place, one noble Lord suggested that part of the problem that day was that unfortunately the RUC local commander was not available as he had the day off. The concerns and position of the RUC commander, Frank Lagan, whom I knew personally, were dismissed on that day.

Wider questions should be asked about the thinking of the Government and others in command that day. People find it hard to believe that this aberration, as some hon. Members have called it, just boiled down to a lack of fire discipline on the day by some squaddies and to the madness and irresponsibility of one officer, namely Colonel Wilford. Let us remember that in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday—little more than a year later—Colonel Wilford received an OBE in the Queen’s honours list. I understand that there is an Honours Forfeiture Committee; is it considering the honour that was given to him? It came as a huge insult to people not just in Derry but throughout Ireland because they saw it as his reward for what had happened on Bloody Sunday—for the injustice and murder of that day and for the lies that were concocted and propagated thereafter. What is being done in that regard?

In the years after Bloody Sunday, the families of those victims, like so many of the grieving families of the troubles, received pretty insulting ex gratia payments. They were told in December 1974 that they would receive those very small amounts of money and negligible compensation was awarded in the name of so many of the young dead who were unemployed or who had no dependants. Those families had to suffer not only the level and terms of those payments, most of which they did not take themselves but passed on to charities or gave away because that is how they felt about them, but being caricatured, besmirched and traduced by a cartoon in a British newspaper—The Sun, I think. Because the news came on 18 December 1974, The Sun did a cartoon showing Santa with £250 notes coming out of his sack.

Let us remember what the Bloody Sunday families have been through. In trying to correct the injustice of that day, they have faced insults, injustice and indifference and they have put up with prevarication and provocation. Let us be clear that they have achieved something not only for themselves but for those who search and thirst for justice in other parts of the world where people face the violations of unaccountable power.

May I correct the suggestion by some hon. Members that Lord Saville’s report deals only with the events of Bloody Sunday? It deals also with the context in which Bloody Sunday happened: there are nearly 1,000 pages dealing with events before and leading up to that day. It deals with other deaths, including the murder of the two policemen in the days before. I was at the funeral mass of one of those policemen on the day before Bloody Sunday. That morning, I heard Father Anthony Mulvey condemn the murder by the Provisional IRA; he condemned the IRA, its efforts and its effects not just for what it did to those policemen but for the threat it represented to everyone else. I then heard Father Mulvey again, on the Sunday night, condemn the murder by the paratroopers. He was right about the Provos and he was right about the Paras. Some of us have always held to that line and we welcome the fact that the Saville report has at least released many people from the burden of the wrong verdict on Bloody Sunday—but unfortunately not all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

Will the Minister acknowledge that Irish Governments have successively, no matter what party was in government—not just the current Taoiseach but previous Taoisigh and Ministers for Foreign Affairs—provided particular support to the Bloody Sunday families? A dossier submitted by the Irish Government helped to lead to the establishment of the inquiry and the current Minister for Foreign Affairs has been particularly supportive. He is particularly in the thoughts of the families this week given the personal and family grief that he is going through, as he buried his young daughter yesterday.

[Mr Swire]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and our heart goes out to him. The Secretary of State and I have written to him at this ghastly time.

Let me conclude by reiterating the Government’s unambiguous position on this report. What happened on Bloody Sunday was unjustified and unjustifiable. The Government are deeply sorry for what happened. The wider challenge that we all face is to ensure that the past is dealt with in a sensitive manner that allows Northern Ireland to move forward to a genuinely shared future.

I am sure the whole House will join me in acknowledging the enormous strides forward that Northern Ireland has taken. As we look back on the terrible events of 38 years ago, we must be thankful that Northern Ireland is now a very different place, but, as some right hon. and hon. Members pointed out, challenges still remain. The Government are determined to play our part in helping to ensure that the future for Northern Ireland is one which is peaceful and based on trust and confidence across the community.

I hope that Lord Saville’s report has, to use a quote adopted by the families, set the truth free. In doing so, it has helped to bring to a close a painful chapter in Northern Ireland’s troubled past. Let me finish by reiterating the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister:

“Northern Ireland has been transformed over the past 20 years and all of us in Westminster and Stormont must continue that work of change, coming together with all the people of Northern Ireland, to build a stable, peaceful, prosperous and shared future.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 742.]

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of the Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.