Adams rejects legacy report

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has said the recommendations of a British “legacy” panel are incapable of addressing issues of truth and reconciliation in the past conflict.

Gerry Adams said he believed that the proposal for a legacy commission, included in the Eames-Bradley report released earlier this year, “fell far short of what was required”.

He said the British government could not be the facilitator of any truth recovery process, nor could it write the brief for any other group to do so.

Mr Adams said the issues surrounding the legacy of the past deserved the widest public discussion. He was addressing a public meeting in his West Belfast constituency organised by local groups including the Falls Community Council, Relatives for Justice and Coiste na nIarchimi, which represents approximately 17,000 former republican prisoners.

Citing the families of those shot dead by the Parachute Regiment in the hours after the introduction of internment in August 1971 and other bereaved families, he emphasised the need for truth to be told.

All participants in the conflict, including the IRA and the British state, had a duty to help to establish the truth about the loss of loved ones.

On the attitude of unionists towards the legacy of the past he said: “I still do not understand why a unionist still shies away from embracing the truth that forces acting for the state killed citizens.

He said there was a need to get beyond the “political posturing” that surrounded the release of the Eames-Bradley group’s proposals on the past and the particular emphasis on the issue of an acknowledgement payment.

Urgent Appeal