2 weeks Ago By Editorial
Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Belfast News Letter, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. There was a telling set of comments today when the UK and Ireland announced their meeting in Hillsborough today. Both the NI Secretary Hilary Benn, and the Irish deputy prime minister, the Tánaiste, Simon Harris will chair the meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIGC).
Advertisement Advertisement The meeting will also be attended by the NIO junior minister, Fleur Anderson MP (who foolishly gave succour to republicans who want to use opinion polls to suggest there is more support for NI exiting the UK than there might in fact be) and the Irish justice minister, Jim O'Callaghan TD. Mr Benn said in his comment before the meeting that it will develop the “close relationship between the UK and the Irish governments as we continue to work together on a range of issues”. Mr Harris specified some of those issues when he said he looked forward to “continuing the intensive discussions .
.. on the challenging but essential work of dealing with the legacy of the past”.
Once again Ireland is lecturing us about legacy when Ireland has failed abjectly to face up to its responsibilities. Two UK governments, most of all this one, have facilitated that failure. The last government tried to shut down parts of legacy, not unreasonably, but was not prepared to take the moral fight to a government that is suing it on legacy.
It grumbled about that legacy case, but took no retaliatory action. The ex police ombudsman, Lady O’Loan, has told MPs that too often Dublin has given assurances that information would be made available on terrorism, but then didn’t. Meanwhile the chief constable has flagged up the pricey piecemeal approach to the past.
Advertisement Advertisement Both observations are correct but the situation is worse than they imply. Dublin’s failure on legacy is not just about Omagh, on which the UK has accepted a mere Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). And the cost is overwhelmingly due to lopsided probes into the UK state, with lawyers paid huge fees.
Yet London lets an Irish minister that is suing it issue instructions as to what must happen on legacy..
