Editorial: ​Irish co-operation on legacy is not nearly enough

​Slowly but surely, pressure is rising on the Republic of Ireland over legacy.

​It is all far too little, far too late, given that the Irish government is suing the UK over the last Tory government’s plan for a conditional amnesty. This was truly staggering hypocrisy given that Ireland has operated a flagrant amnesty for Irish terrorists since the 1990s.

It is a reflection of their cowardice and betrayal of their servicemen that both the last Conservative government in London and this Labour failed to hit back with immediate retaliatory action, as advised by this newspaper the moment the Irish case was lodged at Strasbourg in 2023. In fact, we were calling on radical action to re-balance the pro terrorist direction of legacy before that case. A unilateral probe into decades of Irish extradition refusals would be a start.

Incredibly, the unionist reaction to the last government’s plans of emphasising their opposition was seized upon by Dublin, who made it seem as if they were taking their action on behalf of everyone including unionists. All unionists needed to do was make clear that they have no shared position on legacy with Irish governments who facilitated IRA terror. Instead, they talked about Ireland not co-operating with Kingsmill and Omagh probes. While such refusals was a scandal, it was only a fraction of Ireland’s failures.

Now the NI Affairs Committee of MPs has called on Ireland to push ahead with feeble legacy structures that Hilary Benn has let them agree. The MPs said things such as “we would urge Dublin to move at pace to show their ... good faith”.

While this belated criticism is welcome from a committee which for much of the last Tory government disgraced itself by adopting various nationalist grievances such as on Brexit, it misses the point. The new structures have let Ireland off the hook – again. Their rapid implementation is not enough.