More than 700 people were murdered by the British Army and their loyalist death squads in Ireland during the Troubles. I am thinking about people such as Denise Mullen, a former Aontú councillor in east Tyrone. At four years of age, she witnessed the murder of her father Denis by the Glenanne gang. The killer was a member of the British territorial army. He pumped 17 bullets into her father at their family home. He then sent a burst of machine gun fire in the direction of her mother Olive, narrowly missing her. All this was witnessed by a four-year-old child. When murders of this nature were carried out by the British state, or in collusion with it, they were normally swiftly covered up by the authorities in Britain. It is an incredible that such cover-ups heap massive misery on the families and survivors of those horrific killings. Indeed, the British often cast smears on the victims themselves to claim they were responsible for their own deaths.

This year, the Tory Government have passed the legacy Act through the British Houses of Parliament. That Act is the son and heir of many years of British cover-up in the North of Ireland. The legacy Act is designed to allow the British military to get away with murder. It slams the door on the tortuous campaigns for truth and justice engaged in by many families. The legacy Act is a unilateral action on the part of the British Government. It gives the two fingers to the Government here. It gives the two fingers to the rule of law, to every single victim of the British Government and to every political party on the island of Ireland. It drives a coach and four through the Good Friday Agreement.

Society in the North is in free fall. The democratic institutions have been gutted by the undemocratic boycott on the part of the Democratic Unionist Party. Democratic institutions are not just ornaments. They are not ornaments at all. They are a human right and they have been denied to Irish people in the North of Ireland by a disinterested Tory Government and a disinterested southern Administration. All this has led to a significant corrosion of public services in the North as budgets for health, education, housing and transport have been frozen.

The Government is a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, but the Government is not co-guaranteeing anything at the moment. The Tories have reduced this Government to being a bystander on key aspects of the Good Friday Agreement. I am not sure if the Government even has the self-awareness to recognise that.

The only way we can put a stop to the legacy Act is for the Government to bring the British Government to the European Court of Human Rights. This case will have to be taken before 18 January. There are 36 days for the Government to take the case. For the past number of weeks and months, the Government has been making excuses in relation to this matter. The Christmas holidays will take at least 14 days out of the 36 to which I refer. The Government has literally three weeks to make a decision on this. Will the Government stand by the rule of law? Will it stand by those victims? Will the Taoiseach declare today that the Irish Government will take the British Government to the European Court of Human Rights?

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. He is right to remember and recall the 700 people who were killed by the British Army in Northern Ireland and, indeed, those who were killed by loyalist terrorists. However, I want to be very clear; legacy should not be seen as a sectarian issue, because it is not one. It should not be couched in the terms of orange and green, or unionist versus nationalist. Let us not forget that nearly 3,000 people were killed by republican terrorists in Northern Ireland. I refer to the actions of the IRA and the INLA. I include in that the last Member of the Oireachtas to be killed, the late Senator Billy Fox, who was a member of my party. That is why unionists and unionist parties are also against the legacy Act. They do not believe these people should be allowed off the hook. They believe that if war crimes were committed in Northern Ireland or in this State, they should be prosecuted and those criminals should be punished, not honoured.

In relation to the legacy Act, we will make a decision on this before the deadline in mid-January. The Government and all the main parties in Northern Ireland, victims and their representatives, church leaders and civic society have been consistently opposed to the legislation since it was first introduced. We are aware that many have called on us to initiate an interstate case before the European Court of Human Rights in relation to the Northern Ireland legacy Act. The Government has received detailed and comprehensive legal advice from the Attorney General. This is an essential contribution to our consideration of the next steps. We are fully aware that the initiation of an interstate case would be a significant step that would have to be done on solid grounds. The Government is fully aware of the relevant timelines the Deputy has mentioned and of the fact that we need to take a timely decision on this matter before this House resumes sitting in the new year. We will continue to be guided by the best interests of victims and their families.

It has been suggested that there is no alternative to the legacy Act. However, this ignores the 2014 Stormont House Agreement, which would have established a legacy framework that was supported by the Irish and British Governments, the main parties in Northern Ireland - with the exception of one - and civil society. In contrast, the legacy Act was introduced without meaningful consultation with those most affected, namely, the victims, civil society and the Northern Ireland parties. In addition, there was no genuine engagement with the Irish Government. This is very much out of keeping with the spirit of partnership that we believe underpins the Good Friday Agreement.

Every victim in the North of Ireland is absolutely entitled to justice. Let us not forget the purpose of the Act in question. The Tories have admitted in Westminster that the purpose of the Act is to stop cases being taken against the British military. That is the objective behind the Act. It is important that we understand that context.

The Taoiseach referred to timelines. Before the Act was passed, the Taoiseach said he would use diplomacy to try to stop the British on their course. Three months have passed since the Act passed into law. It seems that for three months we have been speaking to the Attorney General looking for advice on what we should do. That is an incredibly long time. My worry is that for years the Government's strategy with the British Government has been to adopt a softly-softly approach and use diplomatic tones. The Tory Government does not understand that language. That is the truth of it. When the European Union wanted to change the direction of travel of the Tory Government in terms of Brexit, it threatened a legal court case in international law. That changed the Tory Government's actions. My worry is that we are heading into a Christmas period when hundreds of families across the North of Ireland and in the South will be worried and stressed that their opportunity for truth and justice will evaporate. The Dáil will not sit before the January deadline passes. Will the Taoiseach make the declaration to which I refer today?

We did try the diplomatic approach of persuasion and dissuasion-----

It did not work.

-----as well as trying to encourage, cajole and convince the UK Government not to proceed with that legislation. I stand over that approach because if we have to take a harder line, we can at least demonstrate that we exhausted all other options before taking that line. That was the right approach for lots of different reasons. We will have to make a decision on whether or not we will take an interstate case before 15 January. The Attorney General's advice was clear on that. We will make that decision before 15 January.

The Tánaiste and I have had some meetings with the Attorney General and others to work out the next steps but, obviously, any decision has to go to Cabinet before it can be announced in the House.

One thing I would say to the Deputy, which is a sad truth, is that he may believe that by taking an interstate case the UK Government will back down. I am not sure if that is the case and it might in fact play into the hands of people in British politics who would see this as another reason for them to withdraw entirely from the European Convention on Human Rights and we have to bear that in mind too.