A South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission, designed to lead to forgiveness for hundreds of killings committed during the Troubles rather than prosecutions, must be set up, former taoiseach Mr John Bruton has said.
Mr Bruton made the call during a memorial service yesterday in Latton, Co Monaghan, for Senator Billy Fox, who was murdered by the IRA in March 1974.
"Until there is forgiveness, and in many cases it will be unilateral forgiveness on the part of the victim or his/her family, there will be no true liberation from the past.
"Unless that happens, we will - every few generations - repeat that past," said the former Fine Gael leader, who was a close friend of the murdered politician.
The commission, which would emphasise the need for forgiveness above reconciliation and truth, would be better than "a succession of inquiries" into hundreds of "individual atrocities".
Senator Fox was killed at Tircooney near Clones on a visit to the home of his girlfriend. Despite IRA denials of involvement, five IRA members were convicted of his murder in May 1974.
"Billy Fox was a close friend of mine. We shared an office in Leinster House. We even shared the same telephone extension - 379 and the same political assistant - Paddy Friel.Billy's good nature enabled him to cross boundaries between religions and political traditions, as it was his responsibility to do as a public representative.
"That such a man would be murdered still makes me angry. If I am still angry, I can only imagine the feelings of those much closer to him than I," he told the memorial service.
Cataloguing other 1974 atrocities, including the UVF's murder of Belfast Catholic, Mr George Keating, on the same day as Senator Fox, Mr Bruton said society on both sides of the Border now faces major questions.
"Thirty years later, what should we prioritise in our reactions to their evil and tragic deaths? Should we demand a reopening of the files on all unsolved terrorist murders, of which there are hundreds?
"Rather that a succession of inquiries into individual atrocities, and I could suggest hundreds of atrocities for which political accountability might usefully be exacted, I believe that what Ireland needs now is a comprehensive Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Truth Commission - with each of those purposes getting attention, but with the emphasis being placed on the first.
"Repeat that past and all its horrors, because we will have remembered our own people's grievances much more graphically than we will have remembered the suffering of our supposed enemies.
"Maybe that is human nature. But we are called upon to rise above human nature. And I know that that is what those of us who still mourn the loss of the light of Billy Fox's mischievous smile, will do. It is certainly what the words we heard in the beautiful service today in Aughnamullen Church will help us to do," he said.
