00:00Well, I think the first thing I would say is we all need to see the detailed legislation.
00:05As anybody in Northern Ireland will tell you, the devil is very often in the detail.
00:10But on the reading of the joint framework that the government published a few weeks ago,
00:17it seems to me that however much they try and dress this up with protections, so-called protections,
00:24the consequences of their proposals will inevitably mean that veterans are going to be hauled once again before the coroner's courts,
00:33either remotely or in person, and remotely, believe you me, doesn't make a huge amount of difference in this context.
00:40But also, these proposals will open up once again the prospect of prosecutions.
00:47Now, we all know that that is going to be more likely in the case of veterans than it will be former paramilitaries.
00:53for obvious reasons.
00:55The protections themselves, the Prime Minister said at the Labour conference, or around the time of the Labour conference,
01:02that they were exclusively for veterans.
01:04The first briefing I had with the Northern Ireland office on these proposals,
01:07they admitted that five out of the six of the protections for veterans will be available to former paramilitaries.
01:14The only one that's exclusive to veterans is that they will be contacted in the first instance by the Ministry of Defence,
01:21that it's not a route that I suspect former members of the IRA or the UVF would want to take.
01:26So, I think there are some very serious deficiencies in the proposals.
01:31And that's before we get on to the elements concerning Dublin.
01:38Unbelievably, the government did not make it a precondition that the Irish government drops the interstate case against the United Kingdom.
01:47It should have been, drop the case and we'll talk.
01:50Instead, it's still hanging over the UK almost as a threat and a blackmail.
01:57The legislation has to be satisfactory to the Irish government,
02:00which has done nothing on legacy within its own jurisdiction since the Belfast Agreement.
02:06Otherwise, you know, we will continue this case.
02:09Thank you very much.
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