U.S. Representatives Chris Smith (NJ-04), Eliot Engel (NY-17), Peter King (NY-03) and Joe Crowley (NY-07), the Co-Chairs of the Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs, issued the following joint statement in response to the British government’s release of the report of the Saville inquiry into the events of “Bloody Sunday,” January 30, 1972:

    “With the release of the Saville report on the ‘Bloody Sunday’ tragedy of January 30, 1972, and its principal findings that British paratroopers initiated gunfire without warning and that the fourteen men they killed were unarmed, the British government has finally given the families and friends of those killed a measure of justice. Nothing can return to them their husbands, fathers, and sons. Yet the report and the British Prime Minister’s apology and statement that the British army’s actions “were ‘unjustified and unjustifiable’ is an official recognition of truth and a prerequisite for a lasting peace and justice throughout Northern Ireland.

    “We thank the survivors—the families of those killed—for their faithfulness in the quest for truth, and recognize the service they have performed for Northern Ireland. Once again we want to express our condolences to and solidarity with all those who lost family members and friends thirty-eight years ago, and throughout the Troubles, to whom the British Government, according to the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and the Weston Park Agreement on its implementation, still owes a full, independent, and public judicial inquiry—including the family of Patrick Finucane.”

    The committee is a congressional member organization which addresses Irish issues.