Bloody Sunday 50: Pádraig Delargy - ‘We are forever indebted to the Bloody Sunday victims’

Paying tribute at Stormont yesterday he said: “I am proud to be from the Bogside. I am proud to be from Derry. This weekend, more than ever, I was proud to represent Derry, to stand with the families of Bloody Sunday, whose dignity, courage and resolve reverberate in struggles across the world.

“For 50 years, the Bloody Sunday families have marched, campaigned and demanded truth and justice. The people of Derry and Ireland have stood with them, but some of their demands remain unmet. The British Government are intent on preventing any prosecution, through an amnesty for the British soldiers who murdered 14 innocent men and boys on the streets of Derry, injuring another 17.”

He reminded MLAs of the words on the Bloody Sunday monument in Rossville Street: ‘Their epitaph is in the continuing struggle for democracy’.

“The men, women and children who marched on that day marched for civil rights. They marched for democracy. They marched to ensure that future generations would never again be treated as second-class citizens, but 14 of them never got the opportunity to enjoy the equality that they helped to achieve. As a representative of a new generation, I say that we are forever indebted to them. We will remember them, and we will speak their names with pride.”