Linda Dillon
Mid Ulster · Sinn Féin · Northern Ireland
“It is important to have that acknowledgement for the sake of history — so that the generations who come after us will understand what happened to you and what you went through. It is also important for our present and future: we must make sure that what happened to those women, girls and children never happens again.”
“I begin by offering the apologies of my colleague Carál Ní Chuilín, who cannot be here today owing to ill health. Carál has been very much invested in the work on the legislation. The Bill is very important to her, given the work that she does in the Assembly and the people with whom she has personally worked and engaged over many years.”
“My colleague Áine is the Member who probably comes closest to having a true understanding of what you have had to live with and endure, and continue to live with and endure, because it has affected, and will affect, you all your life, and we know that those effects are transgenerational. I acknowledge that.”
“We can never allow that to happen. <BR /> <BR />You showed bravery by speaking up. You spoke up, yes, so that people would know what had happened to you, but you also spoke up so that it would not happen to others.”
“Some lived to see the beginning of the campaign but not the Bill getting to this stage. Many did not even see the beginning of the campaign and did not believe that, in their lifetime — or anyone else's lifetime, for that matter — there would be an acknowledgement of what happened to them.”
“I apologise for not being in the House from the beginning of the statement and thank you for your latitude on that. <BR /> <BR />Thank you, Minister. You have outlined some of the benefits that Waterways Ireland ownership can bring to waterways and local communities.”
The complete record
Every one of 1,578 lines we hold for Linda Dillon, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 2 of 32.
“For all those good officers, however, who do really good work every day on the things that they have to face, the officers who are not doing the right thing need to be dealt with quickly and removed, because they remove confidence from the police and the ability of good police officers to do their job effectively. They waste money and resources every day.”
“The only good option is to get it dealt with, for the officers' sake as well, because, at the end of the day, if there are officers sitting and waiting for an outcome, they need it too. They need to be able to move on. Their families need to be able to move on. They need to know what the rest of their life looks like. That is important. It is important to PSNI as well, and it is important to all. <BR /> <BR />Mr Martin mentioned the things that officers have to face and deal with. We know better than anybody else. We sit on the Policing Board. We hear it. We work with police in our communities. We understand better than anybody else what police have to face daily. I do not remove anything from that.”
“I appreciate the time that the Member has given to interventions on the matter, but it is important, particularly given that Nuala and I are on the Policing Board and we deal with it daily. Cheryl and Keith are in the same position. <BR /> <BR />It is important to understand that the PSNI wants it. In fairness to the Chief Constable, he has used the special case review much more than it was used previously, and it is to his credit that he has done that. It is important because there are two issues in it. You either have officers who have been sitting at home for many years on full pay, doing no job, or you have officers with really serious allegations against them who are moved into other positions of power in the PSNI. That is a problem. It is really difficult to say which of those is the good option. Neither is a good option.”
“Can the Member outline in what other sphere anybody in the public sector has the privileges and rights that he talks about? I see those only in the PSNI. That is not to say that they need to be removed, but I do not think that anybody else in the public sector has the rights and privileges that PSNI officers have. <BR /> <BR />We also must remember that PSNI officers are in a position of power over people. They carry weapons, and they hold power over everybody in this place. We need to understand the significance of the power that they hold. Therefore, they must be held to a higher standard than others in the public service.”
“Last week, the British Prime Minister apologised to the families of the five people who were shot dead by the British Army in Springhill in 1972. For 54 years, those families have been fighting for truth, justice and acknowledgement. Do you, as deputy First Minister, associate yourself with that apology and agree with the British Prime Minister's assessment that it is the duty of the state to hold itself to the highest standard when investigating state killings?”
“We also need to see real and meaningful change in how social care is delivered to support families in the community. Children with life-limiting conditions and their families deserve the opportunity to be a family, make memories and do normal, everyday things. They should not have to spend endless hours on the phone or at meetings, begging for the help that they are absolutely entitled to. The system is failing them. We can, and must, do better. Lila's mummy, Hayley, is asking that we all, as MLAs and Ministers, do what we can to create change in Lila's name. The last words of my statement are hers:”
“Lila Dripps-Weir, aged two years and 10 months, died in the Children's Hospice last Sunday in the arms of her parents, Hayley and Robert, surrounded by her brothers and sister. The Children's Hospice was the beacon of light that could be relied on when all other services failed Lila and her family. We need a system that responds to the needs of those families so that an extremely difficult situation can be made a little bit easier, and so that families can focus on looking after their children and being a family. <BR /> <BR />The Health Committee recently completed an inquiry into palliative care services. There are recommendations from that inquiry that would go some way to improving services. The Minister needs to lay out a plan for the implementation of those recommendations.”
“In recent months, I have helped two such families, including the parents of two amazing, beautiful little girls with severe complex needs requiring 24-hour palliative care. Both of the girls passed away unexpectedly, having been supported by the Children's Hospice, but both families spent precious time during which they should have been able to focus on their girls on fighting for the services that should have been in place to support them. They had to reach out to me, as one of their elected MLAs, for support. I was more than happy to offer whatever help I could. However, those families should not have been in that position. The services should have been in place to care for those children and support their families.”
“I call on the Health Minister to ensure that families with children with severe, complex, life-limiting conditions do not have to lose out on spending precious time with their beautiful children because they are fighting for services to which they should have had access. I thank the Children's Hospice for its amazing services and support for such children and their families, both during their life and, unfortunately, at their death.”
“— whom they care about and want to serve.”
“As has already been outlined, our domiciliary care workers are a skilled workforce; nobody can deny that. Last week, the Health Committee heard from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine that the real issue in emergency medicine is flow. We are not getting people out the other end, and that is because we do not have enough social care staff. We are spending millions and millions of pounds on keeping people in hospital when we could be investing that money in giving our domiciliary care workers the real living wage and a sufficient mileage allowance. I am thinking in particular of those who work in my area, which is a large rural constituency. They have real challenges in delivering services to people —”
“Is the Member suggesting that, if legislation makes it out of the Executive, let us just forget about debating it in here — do not bother — because what is the point if all those who are in the Executive have already made a decision? There is no guarantee that legislation will be supported on the Floor because it has made its way out of the Executive. We saw that last week with the Hunting with Dogs Bill, and we see what happens when legislation does not make its way to the Floor for Members to debate it. The DUP is the master of that, I can tell you.”
“I thank the Member for taking an intervention. I agree with you that, of course, there are bad actors, potentially — in fact, if we go by the figures, almost definitely — even in this Chamber. We need to be honest about that. Do you agree that the swathes of teachers who have contacted us are not all bad actors? They have genuine, honest-to-God concerns about this legislation.”
“There is a suggestion in his last sentence around suboptimal teaching that all of the teachers who have contacted us are content with suboptimal teaching — all of the teachers who said, "This is not the right approach". Is that what you are saying? That is what it sounds like.”
“I thank the Member for taking an intervention. Did not all the parties here, apart from the DUP, agree a number of weeks ago, when the minimum unit pricing Bill was blocked at the Executive, that that was wrong and that it should have been given the opportunity to come to House to be debated? Why therefore would we block this Bill? I agree with my party colleague. You cannot say, "We want to block this and not block that". Either we believe that MLAs have the right to debate the issues and the legislation in the Chamber and make a decision and vote on it, or we do not.”
“Thank you, Minister, for the answer. I am sure that, like me, you have been approached by many parents and families whose children are not receiving, whether in specific special schools or in specialist provision in mainstream schools (SPiMS), the speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy that they need due to their special educational needs. Have you given exact figures to the Health Minister for the gaps in the allied health professionals workforce that are required to be filled to meet special educational needs? If you have those figures, can we have them?”
“I thank the Minister for his statement. Minister, did you have any conversations about bringing Lough Neagh under the responsibility of Waterways Ireland? How would doing so help us improve water quality and increase the potential for tourism around the lough?”
“I thank the First Minister for her answer, particularly her reference to the need for training, because that is very important. Does the First Minister agree that, whilst the Katie Simpson review identified institutional misogyny in the PSNI, that institutional misogyny goes much wider in the justice system? Training is really important, because I can guarantee that, if one man did to another man in the street what men are doing to women in their homes every day of the week, they would get a prison sentence. The questions that those women are asked, the victim-blaming and the absolutely ridiculous sentences that follow need to be addressed. We need to see our judiciary really take that on.”
“Does the Member agree that it was those parents and the organisations that support parents who have lost their babies that really drove the issue, and that that is exactly how politics should work? They told us where the gap was and what they needed. They had a Department and Minister who listened, and delivered, at every point. The Committee also listened. That is really important. It is exactly how politics should work: we identify the gap by listening to people on the ground, and we address it.”
“Is enough work being done to leverage that?”
“I thank the Minister for his statement. I agree with others in the House that this is a positive day, given the investment into our health services in particular. Investment of £5·6 million has been brought in from the Shared Island Fund. Minister, do you think that Departments are doing enough to leverage funding from the Shared Island Fund? Other Members and I were at a North/South Inter-Parliamentary Association meeting on Friday. During some of the conversations at that meeting, it was mentioned that there is good potential for Shared Island funding, particularly towards transforming how Health is delivered in specific areas such as women's health and children's cancer across the island and that that could be done better if we were to do it together. Shared Island would be a way to get to that place.”
“An apartheid Minister looked here with envy. That tells you all you need to know about —”
“You should remember that legislation. B J Vorster, Minister of Justice in apartheid South Africa — I think that you have referred to him, sometimes, Mr Deputy Speaker — declared that he would exchange all of South Africa's security laws:”
“Under that Act, people could be interned without trial; homes could be searched without a warrant; meetings and publications were banned; citizens could be arrested on suspicion alone; and corporal punishment was permitted. Those powers were used overwhelmingly against the nationalist and republican community. It was a central instrument of repression within the northern state.”
“The truth is that this northern state was built upon institutional discrimination and maintained through extraordinarily repressive power for decades. Where is the apology from the UUP for 50 years of one-party sectarian rule? You shaped it all right: you shaped this place. You shaped it into something else, I can tell you. Where is the acknowledgement of discrimination against our people? Where is the recognition that nationalists were treated as second-class citizens and murdered on the streets and in their own homes? <BR /> <BR />One of the clearest examples of that system was the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act 1922 — one of the most notorious emergency laws anywhere in Europe at the time.”
“What do Peter Robinson, Jim Allister, Gregory Campbell, Sammy Wilson and other unionist grandees know about the importation of weapons from apartheid South Africa that ended up in the hands of loyalist paramilitaries across this island? Those weapons were used to murder people such as Kathleen O'Hagan, who was shot dead in her bedroom when she was seven months pregnant, while her baby son lay in a cot beside her and her other four sons were in the bedroom next door. Of those sons, three have passed away.”
“No. <BR /> <BR />The British Government have never fully acknowledged their role in creating and sustaining the conditions for conflict in this part of Ireland. There has never been a meaningful apology for decades of discrimination, repression and state violence against the nationalist and republican community. While the Members opposite speak about victims, many families still wait for answers about collusion between British state agencies and loyalist paramilitary organisations. What do you know about the importation of weapons that were used to murder innocent people? What do you know about the role of Ulster Resistance, the armed wing of the DUP that was established by Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson?”
“That was an agreement negotiated between parties and Governments and supported by the vast majority of victims and their spokespersons. However, once again, when progress towards genuine accountability emerged, it was blocked by the British Government and not brought to the floor of Westminster, despite their promising to do so time and time again. People know why. It is because they fear the truth of history. It is about preserving a narrative in which the British state presents itself as some kind of neutral actor, while suppressing the reality of collusion, shoot to kill, state violence and the arming of loyalist paramilitaries.”
“<BR /> <BR />We know that many investigations into actions — not mistakes — involving the military and state agencies during the conflict were deeply flawed at best and corrupt cover-ups at worst. Families have spent decades exposing collusion, destroyed evidence, withheld intelligence, corruption and systemic obstruction. Just look at the experiences of Sean Brown's family and other families. Again and again, it was not the state that delivered the truth willingly; it was families having to fight for decades against obstruction and denial to uncover the truth, and many continue to do so. <BR /> <BR />There already was an agreed mechanism to deal with legacy: it was called the Stormont House Agreement, and the Irish Government were part of it.”
“Not one campaigner has said that the legislation represents justice. The British Government imposed the legislation over the heads of victims and survivors, because the primary objective was never reconciliation, truth or justice; it was protection. When the Members opposite talk about protections for former soldiers and an end to vexatious investigations, people know exactly what they mean: protection. Why do they need protection? They need to be protected from the law and the courts. You are the people who wax lyrical about abiding by the law; well, the law is there for everybody, and I do not see why you do not think that you, too, are answerable to it. They mean shutting down avenues to the truth, preventing accountability and drawing a line under state wrongdoing.”
“No, I will not. <BR /> <BR />Not one credible victims' organisation asked for the legislation; not one family that has spent decades searching for the truth demanded immunity provisions.”
“There is absolutely no confidence in the process among the overwhelming majority of victims and survivors. You talked about the majority of victims and survivors: is that only those whom you want to listen to, or is it them all? The Irish Government backs them.”
“Neither the motion nor the amendment is about victims. They are not about truth, and they are certainly not about reconciliation. They are yet another attempt to shield the British state from accountability for its actions during the conflict. The DUP and the UUP have spoken today about cooperation, but they ignore the fundamental reality that the ICRIR was rejected because families and victims felt that it was not compliant with articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, let us be honest: we know the DUP's view on the European Convention on Human Rights. That is not simply a Republican argument; that position has been advanced by victims' groups, human rights organisations, international legal experts and the Irish Government.”
“Does the Minister agree that, while I assume that the Committee is well aware of how the date was reached, the issue was that you did not agree?”
“I thank the Member for taking an intervention. Does she agree that one of the saddest aspects of all this is that many of the women did not live to see today? This is our opportunity to give them acknowledgement and allow their families to know that they have been given it. Even for those who do not have family, that acknowledgement is made for those women and girls. They deserve to be remembered and not forgotten.”
“I thank the Member for taking an intervention. That is the very point that I made earlier: it does not matter how long ago the women and their children were in the institutions, because it impacts on them today and will do so for the rest of their lives. It impacts on their families, their children and their grandchildren, and they deserve to be acknowledged. It is about that acknowledgement and the opportunity to make what was done, which was so wrong, a little better — a little bit right.”
“I thank the Member for taking an intervention. Does she agree that this is not something from the past but is very much in the present? It is trans-generational. No matter how long ago the women and their children were in those homes, it affects them today and will affect their families in the future, their children and their children's children. Everything that was done affects every part of their lives, every part of their families and their families' future. This is an opportunity to maybe make that right.”
“None of us wants to outlive our children. You should not have to want not to outlive yours. That is the saddest thing that I have heard today, but it is not the first time that we have heard it. <BR /> <BR />We know that we need action: the health and care plan, and the legislation. That is it. That is all that needs to be said. I do not need to say anything else in my winding-up speech. Let us deliver those two things for those families and their children. The Minister outlined the words that Alma said about those children with no voice. They have a voice. Their parents are their voice, and they made us listen. Well done.”
“Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I do not think that I need to go over what everyone has said. We all agree and know what the problems are. Some people say that, as legislators and as MLAs, we should know the answers to everything. No, we should not, but we should listen to the people who do, and we have listened to them. We have all repeated in the debate what we have heard them say. A number of Members have said that we need action. We do. We know what that action is. Those people have told us exactly what they want. The Minister has just outlined it. Alma said it, as did all the other parents and carers who are here. They have said, "We want a healthcare plan that starts on the day our child is born and finishes on the day they die, which, hopefully, is after us. We are like every other parent, wishing not to outlive our child".”
“It is widely accepted across the Chamber that women have been, and continue to be, failed in our healthcare system. Minister, you have an opportunity to show clearly not only that you understand that but that you genuinely want to tackle it. Your opportunity is to have the independent inquiry into the cervical smear scandal and get answers to the fundamental questions that the ladies and the families who have been impacted on have. In the absence of that inquiry at this point in time, can you detail what exactly has changed in the accountability, governance and oversight of the screening programme to give us, and every woman out there, confidence in it? I still urge women to attend their screening appointments, because, while mistakes were definitely made, screening does save lives.”
“Minister, of the 6,000 homes that you have talked about, how many are specifically for young people with special educational needs who will want to live independently post the age of 19? Do you have figures for that? I think that you have a neck on you to talk about not being funded. You are funded. It is about how you choose to prioritise your funding. Absolutely, you are not funded to the extent to which we would all like to see you funded, but it is about how you prioritise. I think that you want to have a wee think about that.”
“— too late for people to organise lifts to hospital appointments.”
“The trust has the contract with Royal Mail, and the patient relies on that letter coming to them. I acknowledge that we have the My Care app and the reminder text. Not everybody is able to access and avail themselves of the My Care app.”
“I thank the Minister for his answer. Minister, I have been contacted by a significant number of constituents, particularly from the area around Pomeroy, who have many issues to do with health because that area straddles two trusts. Appointment letters do not reach them, and some are for serious appointments that they absolutely cannot afford to miss. Mid Ulster District Council met Royal Mail and the trusts about that, and I do not think that it really got the answers that it required. A number of people have been removed from waiting lists because they missed appointments. Can we get an absolute guarantee from you today that no patient will be put off a list because they missed an appointment due to a failure of Royal Mail to deliver that post?”
“There are many failures through the judicial system and through the PPS. Many of the women and girls we deal with tell us how they are being failed right from the beginning to the end of the system, not just in one part. I want to understand what conversations you have had with the judiciary, with the PPS and with the Health Minister on how we can seriously make sure that that training is compulsory through the powers that you have and the conversations that you have. The judiciary and the Health Minister have the powers to make it compulsory, and we need to see that happen.”
“I acknowledge the family of Katie Simpson and the people who have supported them and the families of all of the women who have died at the hands of their partners, ex-partners and men in their lives. The word "charming" was often used about Jonathan Creswell, and that is how such men get access to women and girls. That is how they get away with what they do. <BR /> <BR />In that vein, Minister, you talked about training, and we know that, in the PSNI, training is compulsory. We as Policing Board members will certainly ensure that we do our job in holding the PSNI accountable. However, much wider training is needed. I understand that the judiciary cannot be compelled to take part in training, but there are many failures. I look forward to reading the report in full to see exactly what the recommendations are and what has come out of it.”
“I thank the Minister for outlining his Department's legislative programme. Minister, when I previously asked about the baby loss certificate scheme, you said that people would be able to access the certificates very soon. Will you give us an update on when that access might start, given that families are really looking forward to finally having something to acknowledge the existence — the life and death — of their child?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am glad to hear that DUP Members spent their weekend watching the Sinn Féin ard-fheis. It was well worth the viewing. It was an excellent weekend enjoyed by all who were there and by all who viewed it, so the fact that they watched it is really good. <BR /> <BR />I would be grateful, however, if the Speaker could review the statements of Deborah Erskine and Phillip Brett, and also possibly that of Timothy Gaston, and get back to me. Standing Order 24A(6)(d) sets out what Members' statements must not be used for. Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle.”
“As I said, that family was reassured that, whilst Hugh John's life could not be saved, everything that could have been done was done.”
“I also acknowledge the support that was given to the family by the school community of St Joseph's College; the local football club, Coalisland Fianna; Brocagh camogie club; and all those clubs and people across our community. I thank the Tyrone county board for allowing the money that was collected at the gate of the Jim Devlin cup last week to be given to the Air Ambulance. That shows how a community can come together to support that family and the organisations that supported them. I encourage everybody who knows what community first responders do in their areas, as we as MLAs do, to ensure that our communities are aware of them, know what they do and know how to contact them, so that they are able to respond in times of crisis. Families really rely on them.”