Omagh Bombing

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words and support today. I would like to think I covered briefly in the statement what he mentions on the legacy Bill. When the Bill comes back to this House after being amended in the other House, I believe we will be able to answer the questions that he and the shadow Secretary of State have raised. I understand the point he makes, but as I have just said, I have literally met hundreds of people who for years and years—decades—have had no answers at all using the current system.

Omagh is most definitely the worst atrocity and has been at the forefront of people’s minds. It is one of the legal cases that has been rumbling through the system for years. However, thousands of people in Northern Ireland have not had access even to an investigation in some cases. I would like to think that when the legacy Bill comes back to this place, I will be able to demonstrate to those people that they have a chance of getting information about what happened to their loved ones, just like we are doing for the victims of Omagh today.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for the way in which he has presented this statement. He has reflected the sensitivity of these issues and the deep concern of the families involved. I well remember some of the complexities from my time in the Northern Ireland Office. The legal judgment he quoted quite rightly described the people who planned and carried out this appalling atrocity as “malevolent and evil”. It is important to put on record that they failed. They failed in their objective to disrupt the peace process, and they failed in their vision for a violent, divisive future for Northern Ireland.

It is vital that we continue to work with all parties across all communities to ensure that the peace process moves forward and that we can successfully deliver on the legacy of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, which this atrocity was designed to disrupt and avoid. With that in mind, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee heard just yesterday from victims groups about the ongoing challenge of tackling paramilitarism. I know that my right hon. Friend has been engaging extensively with those groups. May I encourage him to continue to engage with those victims groups, and particularly to address some of their concerns about the information disparity on each side of the border? It was a vital part of the Stormont House agreement to have information from both the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. May I urge him to engage with the Irish Government, as he said he will on the back of this inquiry, on ensuring that information flows from south to north to the victims groups in Northern Ireland?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank my hon. Friend for his wise words about what happened as a result of Omagh—it was not the success that the terrorists had wanted. They failed to derail the peace process and, on 10 April, we will reach the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. That agreement came at some price in political capital for many of the people who entered into it, but it has brought peace and stability to Northern Ireland for the last 25 years. As he rightly said, I am well aware of the ongoing Select Committee investigation into paramilitarism. I have engaged partially with it so far, but I believe that I will even have the privilege of attending and giving evidence to it in the near future. On Ireland, I would like to think that I have a constructive and friendly relationship with my counterparts there. At the last British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, we talked about a number of cases where information flows on both sides were mentioned, so we talk about these issues and I hope that we will engage fully on them as we move forward as well.