Headline: Michelle O’Neill calls on Irish government to take international legal action over Riot Legacy Act
Northern Ireland chief ministerial candidate Michelle O’Neill has said the Irish government should take international legal action if Britain refuses to withdraw the proposed Riot Legacy Act.
The northern leader of Sinn Féin said the proposed bill, the Northern Ireland Riots (Heritage and Reconciliation) Bill, currently before the UK Parliament, denies the human rights of families of victims of killings by British National Forces in Northern Ireland.
She said: “The legislation that is currently being finalized in Westminster has only one purpose: to cover up the truth and protect the British National Forces. It is anti-democratic, it is unjust and it is a victim of decades of fighting for the truth. and the denial of the human rights of their families.”
“The UK government should withdraw this legislation. If the UK government does not withdraw this legislation, the Irish government should fight this human rights violation through international litigation and international action.”
Speaking at the Sinn Fern party’s 42nd annual National Hunger Strike commemoration, Ms O’Neill said the party’s growth had led to a need for change that was more urgent than ever, whether in Northern Ireland or the South. Ireland, the party will deliver on this demand for change and a united Ireland.
She said: “The state of Northern Ireland in which my parents and grandparents lived no longer exists. The artificially created political coalition majority no longer exists, and Sinn Fern won two historic elections – this year and last year – and we are now The largest political party in the Northern Ireland Assembly and local government.”
“For the first time, a Republican from Tyrone, a nationalist, and I, as a woman, have the potential to serve as first minister in a country designed to ensure that never happens. I will never would allow anyone to be treated the way our parents and grandparents were treated.”
She said there was no contradiction between the commitment to unionism and the firm commitment and delivery of power-sharing by others in the Stormont governing body, while still debating and planning constitutional changes to end the division of the island of Ireland.
She urged the DUP to face the reality of last May’s historic parliamentary election, when Sinn Fern became the largest party in Stormont, and stop resisting the power-sharing government that people voted to restore.
“Their resistance is hamstrung by those who need government agencies to ease the burden of living costs, address health crises, attract investment, create jobs, effect change, and plan for the future,” she said.
Ms O’Neill predicted that Sinn Fern president Mary Lou McDonald would become the first female prime minister in a government that did not include Fenafer and the Finnish Gore party, but said the current Irish government needed to start preparing for reunification and planning.
She said: “The Dublin government must form a citizens’ parliament to plan for peaceful, orderly and democratic constitutional change, but rest assured there will be referendums on Irish reunification and to win them we must be organized and energetic , and work tirelessly in our work.”
The commemoration commemorates 22 Republicans who died in British and Irish prisons from Irish conscript leader Thomas Ash during the Easter Rising in 1917 to Mickey Devine, the last Republican to die in Maze Prison in 1981. Starved and died.
Among those in attendance were local Coxinfein MPs Thomas Gould, Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire and Pat Buckley, as well as ex-Sinfein President Gerry Adams, ex-Crisinfein MP Martin Ferris and former Sinfein Communications Director Danny Morrison.