Ulster Unionist MLA Michael Copeland has called for the Dublin Government to issue pardons and apologies to the veterans and families of those men who left the Irish Army to enlist in the British Army and engage in the fight against fascism in World War II.
The East Belfast representative said;
“Those men who left the Irish Army and followed in many cases in their fathers’ footsteps into the British Army to fight fascism, must have viewed their return home to Ireland with a sense of foreboding, given the ignominious expression of sympathy offered by Mr De Valera to the people of Germany upon the death of Herr Hitler.
Their subsequent treatment is a stain on the integrity of the Republic of Ireland and should be removed forthwith.”
