Irish Government must answer for its role in Troubles: Gregory Campbell

The Irish Republic’s government will have to face its own hard questions about its role in the Troubles in any ‘legacy process’ aimed at securing justice and truth for the conflict’s victims, a DUP MP said in Dublin yesterday.
By Henry McDonald
Published 9th Mar 2022, 21:05 BST
DUP MP Gregory CampbellDUP MP Gregory Campbell
DUP MP Gregory Campbell

On his first political engagement in the Republic’s capital for 40 years, East Londonderry MP Gregory Campbell said he accepted an invitation to Government Buildings in Dublin to “cut through the simplistic bias that passes for commentary among many” south of the border.

He was there in his capacity as a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster and its ongoing inquiries into ‘The Northern Ireland Protocol and the Legacy of Troubles in Northern Ireland’.

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On legacy issues, Mr Campbell said: When some in the Republic demand that the UK government comes clean regarding a range of legacy issues under its control, they need to understand the same logic applies to the government in the Republic.

“At the start of the ‘Troubles’ the then government in Dublin gave money to help form the genesis of the Provisional IRA. They offered shelter and succour to many in that same organisation and only belatedly saw in that same organisation the threat these same terrorists offered not just to our country to theirs also.”

The DUP MP said “thankfully things have changed significantly” to a time when “we now have the prospect of our two countries, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic side by side, offered the hand of friendship across that same border”.

Mr Campbell warned, however, that a change of government in Dublin with a more stridently nationalist policy “will not change the will of the people of Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK nation and all the tangible benefits of belonging to the UK”.

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