Part of Orders of the Day — Northern Ireland (Location of Victims' Remains) Bill – in the House of Commons am 7:51 pm ar 12 Mai 1999.
Conservative Members have never hidden the fact that we find it obnoxious and outrageous that there should ever be a need for a Bill such as this. It is a permanent blot on Irish history that grieving relatives have not been able to bury their dead properly because of the actions of terrorists. The fact that the IRA and other terrorist groups did not have the common humanity to tell the authorities—even anonymously—where the bodies were gives us an insight into their mindset. That information would have put to rest the minds of those grieving relatives.
The balance is a difficult one to strike, but I agree with the Minister that the views and sensitivities of the victims' relatives are paramount, and more important than legislation which, in other circumstance, no hon. Member would want to be passed in this House.
In addition, I echo and understand what the Minister said about his inability to guarantee that the terrorist organisations that committed these vile murders will come forward with the appropriate information to the commission. I deeply agree with him that they should: it will be yet another disgrace if they do not. I hope, for the sake of the victims' relatives—whose agonies none of us can begin to imagine—that at last their grief can come to an end.
In conclusion, I hope that the paramilitaries and their political associates will not use the Bill as a bargaining ploy to be turned to their political advantage in talks, now or in the future. I do not think that the House or the people of Northern Ireland would ever forgive them if they did. I hope that the evidence and information are brought forward in a proper and correct way.