Libyan peace key to IRA compensation: Dodds

Speaking during a debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEP Diane Dodds urged the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs to back the campaign for compensation.

Colonel Gaddafi, long-time dictator of the north African state, had supplied the IRA with weapons and explosives. He was toppled and killed in 2011, and the country remains chaotic.

Mrs Dodds said: “We must see a relative and sustainable peace in Libya in order to further our goal of negotiating a fair financial settlement for these innocent victims.

“Europe must play its part in this bringing about this future. It must then stand with the victims of IRA terrorism in their very valid and pressing right to compensation.”

Although the UK holds billions of pounds-worth of frozen Libyan assets, the Government says it does not have the power to use this for compensating IRA victims.

Instead its preferred remedy is for a deal to be struck between victims and “the relevant Libyan authorities”.

However, the country remains in a state of turmoil with no stable government.