Kingsmill families feel abandoned by State ‘on both sides of the Border’

Families of the victims of the Kingsmill massacre in South Armagh 43 years ago, feel abandoned by the State "on both sides of the Border", the first Ulster Unionist Senator elected to the Seanad has said.

Senator Ian Marshall highlighted one of the most serious atrocities in the Troubles when 10 Protestant workers were shot dead and another was seriously injured in the attack in 1976 when the minibus they were travelling home from work in was stopped by the IRA and they were lined up for mass execution at Kingsmill. The sole Catholic in the group was told to run away.

Mr Marshall said the families had got no comfort from the authorities in Dublin or the North over the killings after 43 years.

He told the Seanad that “these families, as passive onlookers to other inquests and inquiries – the Bloody Sunday inquiry, Ballymurphy, the Birmingham pub bombings” and the Daniel Hegarty case, “feel completely abandoned and left behind with a sense of unfairness and a feeling there is absolutely no regard for their redress”.

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But Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan said the Kingsmill families "should not lose hope". The Government was fully committed to co-operation with legacy inquests in Northern Ireland and promised legislation would be published shortly and debated in the Seanad before the summer recess.

Mr Marshall had referred to a legacy inquest in Belfast last week into the Kingsmill massacre, which heard of the “apparent lack of appetite in Dublin to move” on legislation that would allow a coroner in the North to cross the border to hear the testimony of Garda witnesses.

‘No hierarchy’

Mr Marshall said the Northern Ireland Office was also criticised at the inquest for failing to present a witness to provide evidence on the on-the-run scheme that gave assurances to paramilitaries involved in atrocities.

The Taoiseach’s nominee also referred to debate at the inquest about whether two deceased suspects in the Kingsmill should be named.

He pointed to the authorisation given by senior IRA figures to allow four deceased suspects in the Birmingham pub bombings to named at that inquest.

Mr Marshall said it was time to assist the legal process and “demonstrate to these families that there is no hierarchy of loss, pain or suffer, and not hierarchy of victims”.

Mr Flanagan gave his “sincere personal commitment” to Government commitments on the North including the Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Bill on Garda assistance to legacy inquests in the North.

The Minister pointed out that in 2015 the Government approved specific legal arrangements in the Kingsmill case that resulted in the Garda authorities transferring all relevant documents in their possession and they had responded to his follow-up queries.