The grandson of Éamon de Valera, one of the key politicians in the founding of the Irish Republic, has called for an end to the prosecution of an ex-soldier accused of killing civilians in the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972.

Éamon Ó Cuív, a Fianna Fáil TD and former Irish government minister, said he supported an amnesty for all those involved in the Northern Ireland conflict from 1969 to the 1998 Good Friday agreement, and this had to include the paratroopers involved in one of the most infamous atrocities of the Troubles.

“Whether it is ex-IRA volunteers, loyalists, the old RUC, the Ulster Defence Regiment or British soldiers, there should be an amnesty for all,” Ó Cuív told the Guardian.

On Saturday the 44th anniversary of the 1972 atrocity will be marked with a march through Derry and will hear calls for the prosecution of those who fired the shots that killed 14 people.

A priest gives the last rites to an injured boy. Photograph: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy

Relatives of the dead have received letters from the Police Service of Northern Ireland informing them that seven of the paratoopers involved in the shootings will be interviewed by detectives next month.

Commenting on the arrest of a 66-year-old ex-paratrooper in County Antrim in November in relation to the fatal shooting of three civilians on Bloody Sunday, Ó Cuív said: “I really don’t see the point, especially as the police seem to be tracking down the foot soldiers. They are not going after the generals and their political bosses who ordered in the Parachute Regiment into Derry that day.

“I think there is a real need to have an amnesty in order to get to the truth of what happened over the past 40 years in the north. You cannot get former players to talk about what they did in the Troubles if they face prosecution for incidents from the past. Truth will not be obtained through prosecutions. I am not just talking about the Bloody Sunday soldiers but all those who carried out terrible atrocities in the north.”

British troops in a standoff with protesters on Bloody Sunday. Photograph: Alamy

Ó Cuív said there was an important precedent in the republic after nationalist Ireland divided bitterly over the 1921 treaty that partitioned the island and caused the civil war. He said arresting people over the past in Northern Ireland would only “poison” peace and power sharing.

He cited the example of another prominient Fianna Fáil politician, Seán Lemass, who was taoiseach from 1959-66 andput the country’s violent past behind him.

Like De Valera, Lemass took part in the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule and in 1923, a year after the civil war ended, his younger brother Noel was kidnapped, tortured and murdered, allegedly by pro-treaty soldiers in a revenge killing.

“By the time Sean Lemass became taoiseach he knew full well from intelligence reports and so on who had been responsible for the murder of his brother Noel. Yet Sean Lemass never once thought about carrying out revenge or demanding retrospective justice,” Ó Cuív said.



“He knew fine well that the country had to put all that behind it in order to move Ireland forward. Sean Lemass’s attitude to his own personal story and the murder of Noel is one of the best lessons from our history that we can all learn.”

He said many of the “colonels, and I don’t just mean colonels in the British army” would prefer it if the full truth about the Troubles was not revealed.

Ó Cuív has been active in campaigns to free ex-IRA members arrested by police investigating a small number of unsolved murders and attempted murders in Northern Ireland. He has also worked on behalf of the families of dissident republican inmates to improve conditions in jails, north and south, as well as helping to calm tensions between political prisoners and prison authorities.

In the past Ó Cuív has said he was prepared to meet Ulster loyalists who were angry about the arrest of former Ulster Volunteer Force activists in connection with unsolved Troubles crimes. The loyalists have alleged that the police and the Northern Ireland Office seem more prepared to arrest them than mainstream republicans because of Sinn Féin’s presence in the power-sharing government at Stormont.

The retired paratrooper who was arrested this month has been questioned over the killings of William Nash, 15, Michael McDaid, 20, and John Young, 17, in the 1972 massacre. He is also suspected of the attempted killing of Nash’s father, Alexander. His arrest was connected to an investigation launched in 2012 after the Saville inquiry found that none of the victims of Bloody Sunday posed a threat to soldiers when they were shot.