Sammy Wilson

When we cut through the waffle of this statement and the Secretary of State’s answers this afternoon, one fact remains: soldiers who served in Northern Ireland who have already had cases tried will be able to be dragged back into the courts and will be subject to interrogation there. The Secretary of State talked about all these wonderful protections, so let us look at them: they will not have to travel to Northern Ireland—they can appear remotely; they will be given help to appear remotely—I assume that means that somebody will show them how to work an iPad; and they will not have a knock at the door from anybody other than the military police, so the PSNI will not be coming over from Northern Ireland and knocking at their door at 6 o’clock in the morning. That is hardly any reassurance to the people who served in Northern Ireland. Then we are told that dealing with the families who were affected by the troubles is a joint responsibility with Irish Government. There is no obligation in this statement on the Irish Government, other than to throw 30 pieces of silver at the legacy mechanism to assuage their guilt for protecting terrorists over 30 years and for covering up for the collaboration of some within the Irish establishment who helped the IRA in their job.