Foyle MP Mark Durkan
SDLP Foyle MP Mark Durkan has expressed his profound concerns about the ‘chicane of flaws’ which have been written into proposed legislation on dealing with the legacy of the past.
Mr Durkan, a member of the SDLP delegation at the Stormont talks, said: “Prior to the current talks the SDLP registered a number of fundamental concerns about what we feared was the direction of travel away from some of the terms of the Stormont House Agreement.
“We have continually reminded the British government, the Irish government and all the other parties – as we said publicly on the day it was issued – Stormont House falls short of the Haass proposals, which in turn fell short of Eames / Bradley.
“As we stated then, the requirement for victims and the wider needs of society and future generations is to build up from the Stormont House Agreement to try to make good its inadequacies.
“The draft clauses which we have now seen from the British government detract and divert from the terms of the Stormont House Agreement in too many areas for them to be acceptable even for tabling.
“The SDLP has been unambiguous in its verdict at the talks that the British government should not table the bill.
“Not only have we refused to be bound by the British government’s timeline of having to table the bill in Westminster next week, we have not even accepted the claimed imperative of tabling it this month given our profound concerns about the chicane of flaws which have been written into these clauses.”
