Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Oral evidence: Reconciliation, HC 185
Wednesday 9 September 2026
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 9 September 2026.
Members present: Tonia Antoniazzi (Chair); Chris Bloore; Sorcha Eastwood; Simon Hoare; Mike Kane; Katrina Murray; Gavin Robinson; David Smith; Robin Swann.
Questions 31 - 69
Witnesses
I: Sandra Peake, Chief Executive Officer, Wave Trauma Centre; Kenny Donaldson, Director, South East Fermanagh Foundation; Mark Thompson, Chief Executive Officer, Relatives for Justice.
II: Joe McVey OBE, Commissioner, Commission for Victims and Survivors for Northern Ireland.
Witnesses: Sandra Peake, Kenny Donaldson and Mark Thompson.
Q31 Chair: Welcome to the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee session on reconciliation. For panel one, we have Kenny Donaldson, the director of SEFF, who is joining us online; Sandra Peake, chief executive officer of the Wave Trauma Centre—welcome, Sandra—and Mark Thompson, chief executive officer of Relatives for Justice.
I will ask Sandra first because you are in the room. What does reconciliation look like from the perspective of victims and survivors?
Sandra Peake: Reconciliation varies considerably in relation to how people would define it. I will share one piece of feedback from a lady who was brave. She said, “Reconciliation means to me healing, moving forward and growth, being able to face the past openly and honestly like Operation Kenova”—which she came through—“and understanding that to heal does not mean forgetting.”
Fundamentally, all people would define reconciliation as an understanding that their loved one’s life mattered and what happened to them mattered, and we need to acknowledge that. We need to ensure that it is not about forgetting the past; it is acknowledging the past and ensuring that we do not repeat it. That is really the drive of many people who give very freely, who work very freely and who are courageous in the name of trying to create a better society.
Kenny Donaldson: Yes, I have similar views to what Sandra has expressed. With reconciliation, in many ways we feel like this language has almost become part of the stumbling block. It is a quarter of a century old at this stage. In many ways, peace and reconciliation, when it comes together, is often attributable to resourcing and grant aid. That is unfortunate.
We would always say that it is about good neighbourliness. If you are a good neighbour to someone, you will have their back. You will watch out for them. You will ensure that their rights are protected and enshrined. What you demand for yourself you also demand for others. That is how we break it down.
For reconciliation to be possible for victims and survivors, accountability is a critical component part. I have heard many over the years almost put that pressure point on to the shoulders of victims and survivors: “You must forgive. You are the impediment to peace”. The truth is that victims and survivors, with the grace that they have shown over the last quarter of a century, are the living embodiment of peace.
That has often been misunderstood. People have not been given the due respect that they should have had.
Mark Thompson: I would not disagree with anything that Sandra or Kenny have said. It is similar. There is a personal reconciliation in terms of people and how they reconcile themselves with what has happened.
For more general societal reconciliation, the prerequisite is dealing with the past. At times, it is putting the cart before the horse. Sometimes politically it is nice to tie things up in a bow and have it nicely presented as reconciliation—“Everybody is happy and moves on”. The truth is that society will not move on until we deal comprehensively with the past. That has been the stumbling block.
There is also an emphasis of enforced reconciliation on the victims. Kenny picked up on that a little bit. The emphasis is on the victims to reconcile, and if they do not, that responsibility on them is a negative connotation.
Generally, I think reconciliation is the by-product of getting everything else right. That is where the hard work needs to be done. It is reconciliation between communities, within communities and between countries. It is within this Parliament that you are in today, the Parliament in Ireland and the Assembly. There is responsibility everywhere. It is incumbent upon everyone to deal with the past because getting that right means the path to reconciliation is much easier.
Q32 Chair: Both of you have brought up the unfair burden being placed—you use the word “enforced”—on victims and survivors by expecting them to deliver reconciliation. Can you expand on those concerns and the consequences of that, Mark?
Mark Thompson: When people in society talk about reconciliation, the general expectation that we all need to move on creates pressures. It sometimes silences people who want to speak up. Sometimes the people who I speak to say, “I do not need to make reconciliation. People have to reconcile with me for what has happened to me, my experience and the harm that has been visited upon me. When I speak about addressing that publicly, whether by using the law or human rights to address that, somehow or other, people talk about reconciliation, and I am a barrier to that”.
There is an emphasis placed on that. It can be disingenuous and it can be carefully choreographed and juxtaposed to portray victims as toxic or in a negative light. We hear that quite a lot. That is part of the condition for silencing people too.
If I give an example, the Legacy Act had the word “reconciliation” within it, camouflaging the true intent of what was in that Bill, from immunity provisions right through to not being compliant with the law. In challenging that you were somehow challenging reconciliation. That was deeply offensive.
Kenny Donaldson: We have used language that almost two Northern Irelands have grown up as a consequence of 1998 and the Belfast agreement. In 1998, for those who were not directly touched by the violence, the violence certainly receded, if not stopped. At that particular juncture, many people were clapping others on the back and saying, “Thank you for stopping. Now we are committing to a new agenda”.
Even the impression across the water was that at that stage we had realised peace and reconciliation was going to follow naturally. That was an absolute misjudgment, because the truth is that many of the cohort of people who were directly impacted by the violence have never received any account for what they have endured. They have watched some parts of Northern Ireland and some communities move forward at pace, and they are left in this space of almost being portrayed as backwards people who somehow cannot move forward with this new agenda.
That is deeply troubling; it is grossly unfair. If you think about it, many of those individuals lived life by strong values. They were opposed, and always had been opposed, to the use of violence from whatever quarter it came. They lived their lives in that manner. They were good neighbours to others. Yet they are the people who are left now in the shadows. They are no longer part of the mainstream. They are almost part of the fringes. That is what needs to be addressed in all this.
Sandra Peake: To pick up on Mark’s point, in putting reconciliation into the legislation, the last Government placed an onus that, in some ways, victims and survivors were holding us back. That could not be further from the truth.
Every day, I see the most progressive people. They lead by example. They have taken the most risks and borne the most horrific losses, and yet every day they go out to try to make Northern Ireland or wherever they are a better place. They contribute to education; they try to ensure our health services are much more attuned to victims’ and survivors’ needs; they go out and campaign in relation to the injured pension, regardless of who or what they are; they go out to fight for the return of their loved ones.
There was a suggestion or an implication that they, in some ways, were holding us back. That could not be further from the truth. We have to acknowledge the cost. There is a need for acknowledgment and a need to feel that their loved ones’ lives mattered. That needs to be very clear.
The other implication was that, if only victims and survivors would be quiet, we would all be okay. The reality is that that could not be further from the truth. I go back to the point that they are the most progressive. They lead by example. They take risks.
Every year, 1,200 new people choose to come into Wave because we are a cross-community organisation. That is the choice that they make. They make it because they are trying to create a better society for their loved ones, in the same way as the other groups represented here today on screen.
Q33 Chair: Sandra, can reconciliation be delivered through Government policy or is it fundamentally a personal choice?
Sandra Peake: It is both. Government policy can help in ensuring that the resources and requirements are there in relation to trying to bring about change, absolutely. I also think that it is personal choice and that no burden should be placed on individuals. That is really important. We should not place a burden on individuals and say to victims and survivors, “In some ways, you are holding us back” because, again, that could not be further from the truth.
We need to support people to make those choices. How do we do that? We do that by bespoke services. We do that by having a legacy process that delivers, and delivers fully. I always say that many people need to be freed from the past. If we do not get legacy right, we are not freeing families from the past. All we are doing is passing the trauma to the next generation.
Transgenerational referrals into Wave today are at 15%. These are people who were born long after their loved ones were killed, but who are trying to find out the truth, trying to get answers. They are people who may have been very young at the time.
We need to have a process that delivers. Legacy is at the heart of that. Acknowledgment is at the heart of that. Education is at the heart of that. We need to create those mechanisms with which we can create a better and more informed society, but we need to get it right.
Q34 Simon Hoare: Sandra, can I just ask you a question about the hard-to-reach people? The “easiest” people to deal with are those who step forward, come in and say, “Let us do something”. There are those who say, “There is nothing to reconcile. My side of the argument was right. Their side of the argument was wrong. We have nothing to apologise for. We have no bridges to build”. Stubbornly, they remain. What thoughts does anybody have on how to re-energise that process?
Sandra Peake: It is about hearing the voices of those who have borne the brunt. When you hear those voices and you hear the journey people have been on, the question is: “Was violence worth it?” Of course it was not, when you look at the total destruction that it had.
For many people, it is about looking at the context. When “Say Nothing” came out—based on the book by Patrick Radden Keefe—people asked, “How did it get so bad that a society and context was created in which terrible things happened? How did that happen?”
There are many uncomfortable truths for us. There are many uncomfortable truths, as Mark said, for everyone. One of the issues for people is that it is not one against the other. Intra-community conflict is particularly difficult and the silence particularly deafening. We need to acknowledge that there was an intimacy to the violence that many people continue to have to deal with. That is why we need to get the systems and processes right, to do that for them and challenge those who sit in the margins and say, “I have nothing to be responsible for.”
Kenny Donaldson: The crux of all this is: “Are people willing to self-reflect upon what they did do and what they did not do over the years of the violence?”
I have always said that there is a need—more so in this society—for humility. That is also a prerequisite to reconciliation. People need to be prepared to humble themselves and challenge the identities through which they gained their position in the world. What ultimately was achieved by taking your neighbour’s life in whatever context, whether you claim you were pursuing a political objective or defending a political objective? Was it ultimately ever justified?
We have this warped position now in Northern Ireland. A grievance can be a real grievance or a perceived grievance, but it has all got muddled up, so that, if I experience a grievance, I almost have a direct right to use violence as a means of addressing that grievance. That is where we are. If we are really serious about not having this thing turn on its head again in the future, that mistruth needs to be buried.
A grievance has to be addressed. There are all manner of things that need to be done at governmental level and at all levels to deal with those issues, but it does not legitimise the murder of your neighbour.
Mark Thompson: In response to Simon’s question, you can look at the comments by Theresa Villiers. Families were working with the Police Ombudsman to examine the killings of their loved ones where collusion or state violence was involved. On the anniversary of the murder of Pat Finucane, at the University of Ulster in Belfast, she said that people were engaging in a “pernicious counter‑narrative”. People need to reflect, exactly as Simon says, on comments like that. Karen Bradley said that all killings by the British Army were lawful killings. Of course, she later did retract that on record. They are the people who have a responsibility and yet make very offensive comments.
I measure that with the total generosity of families to step forward, be brave and ask difficult questions. They are not only asking for themselves. As Sandra says, there is a transgenerational impact. They do not want their grandchildren having to pick this up and deal with it. They want it addressed. It is about recognition and acknowledgment.
We are dealing with difficult questions and unpalatable truths. People are brave enough to step forward—we see them every day in all our organisations—and ask those questions, and then they are denied or face comments that seek to send them back or make them retreat. That is unhelpful.
We need to create a pathway, as I talk about. The only way to do that is dealing with the transitional justice issue in a lawful and meaningful way that is compatible with the European convention on human rights, to which both Governments in both jurisdictions where people were harmed have an obligation to adhere.
Q35 Katrina Murray: On one of the first visits that the Select Committee did, we sat down with you, Sandra, in the Wave Centre. One of the things that struck me most was when we talked about the cynicism that most of the families had: “What are we getting? Is this going to be different? Is it going to be that step forward?” That is a value that I have tried to personally carry through all this because, no matter which group you meet, this is probably the one chance that we have to make a difference.
Given the ongoing delays in processing the Troubles Bill, what impact is this having on victims, survivors and families? What risks do you see if the uncertainty around it continues?
Sandra Peake: There are very deep concerns in relation to it. You have to remember that we have had successive processes that delivered in part but did not deliver fully for everybody. In fact, not everybody even got the chance to engage. I go back to the Historical Enquiries Team, which did some good work for some people, but it was closed before other people ever got near. Some people felt that the process was not as full as it should have been. That was proved most visually in relation to Operation Kenova in terms of what families got through that process in comparison to what they got when they went through HET.
There is a real sense of fear, first, about the time delay, and secondly, in relation to what is proposed and whether it will deliver or be as genuine as it should be. People want that. They want to see something that delivers. Thirdly, they do not want it to be carried on within the family. They do not want to be handing it down, and yet we see the impact of it being handed down. We need to get something in place that delivers fully for families.
I have been around Wave for over 30 years. The best example of legacy being addressed that I have seen is Operation Kenova, because it put victims and survivors at the heart of the process. When you talk to them today, they will talk about why it made such a fundamental difference to them. Every family deserves that. Every family should receive that. We need to get this right. The structures that have been put in place do not give them fully what they need.
When you talk to families, many of them say, “I need the truth. I need to know that my loved one mattered. I need the truth. I need to know what happened and why it happened to be able to move forward”.
Q36 Katrina Murray: Kenny, you said pretty much the same to us when we visited SEFF. What are your opinions?
Kenny Donaldson: The difficulty is that you almost need to go back and review what has happened over the last quarter of a century around what pathways to justice, truth and accountability have been open to victims and survivors across the piece. When you do that, you can see a level of despondency that has grown within many people because they do not have a pathway that is going to progress things for them. People will point to the deficiencies within the ICRIR body currently. Some people do not engage with it. Many families have taken that view.
In terms of our own organisation, there has been a cohort of people who have committed to work with it. They are not doing so because they believe it is the holy grail or because it is guaranteed to achieve for them. They are doing so because it is the only option that they have on the table.
In terms of the coronial inquest system, they have a very limited opportunity and gateway to that pathway. It is still a matter of consideration where that all goes.
The civil courts are the main focus around the table here. There have been two judgments where individuals connected with proscribed organisations had judgments made against them and damages were to be paid to victims and survivors. There is no mechanism for that judgment to be applied. These individuals are living out of jurisdiction. That is something that we think is gravely unjust. Whatever we move forward with now has to be consistent and open to all victims and survivors, whatever background they come from.
We have always championed the rights of people, irrespective of who they are, if they are progressing these issues. We need to have more of that. If we do so in a very piecemeal manner, we ultimately get flawed outcomes.
Mark Thompson: If I am picking up your question right, it is about what will happen if we do not get this right. Every failed process has added an additional harm to the bereaved and the injured, and consequently to their families. It takes a piece out of them.
You mentioned the HET. It eventually had to be disbanded because in law it had treated the killings by British soldiers with less rigour and had been in some senses quite partial. That is a theme. If you look at the Police Ombudsman, it was constantly dogged with a lack of resources to do its work effectively. There was a lack of co-operation and a lack of the provision of documents.
We had an unprecedented situation where the previous Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, issued judicial review proceedings against the chief constable—one statutory organisation judicially reviewing another in a constitutional type of crisis for the failure to provide the information, the intelligence files, to enable it to do its work. We have seen all these things happen. In each of these processes, it is public interest immunity, national security or the destruction of documents when it comes to the examination of the state.
All these processes have led us to a place where the rule of law and human rights have been the only tools for lots of the families we work with to use in a judicial way to find out what happened to their loved ones. Ultimately, we then had the Legacy Act, which shut that down. From the perspective of that large cohort of families, there have been these failed processes. When they assert their rights, they are faced with national security. That has been a problem.
The lack of candour is going to be a problem around the Legacy Act and the Troubles Bill. If we look at the Hillsborough law, what impact is that going to have when it comes to MI5?
Sandra mentioned Jon Boutcher. I worked closely with him and his team with a number of families. It was a robustly different process. He faced some of these difficulties, such as prosecution files that were never acted on in terms of accountability. I would urge the Committee to read a recent book called “Neither Confirm Nor Deny”, by the journalist John Ware. It gets to the heart of all these issues. I would urge everybody to read it and educate themselves around it.
The context is that we do need to get it right. We have constantly heard, “It is the last effort. It is the last chance”. We have been hearing that from day one, and sometimes that is used as a mantra to intimidate and scare families.
Kenny Donaldson: To add to this, a good section of our cohort are victims and survivors based along our borderlands. I appreciate that this Committee today does not have jurisdiction within the Republic of Ireland, but the Irish contribution around all this is absolutely critical to where we go.
It needs to be put on record that at this point in time there is no co-design process. There is no opportunity for us to have these engagements or anything like them in terms of trying to frame what comes forward from the Republic. My concern is that whatever eventually does come will be a fait accompli. You will have to work with it, and you will not have any opportunity to point to the likely deficiencies that are there.
I would please ask you, Chair, to make it your business to robustly ask those questions of the Irish state around all of this, because it is still very much cloak and dagger.
Chair: That is noted.
Q37 Katrina Murray: Kenny, you have already talked about some of your cohort using the ICRIR process because they feel it is the only route open to them at the moment. Certainly, the Committee has been concerned about recent developments with the May inquiry. What impact is the uncertainty around ICRIR having on families seeking answers? What will the consequences be if confidence in the process continues to erode?
Kenny Donaldson: It is like a lot of these issues. Outcomes dictate everything, don’t they? Where I have more concern, and certainly where the victims and survivors we represent have more concern, is around seeing the first report, which will be followed by all the other reports, being put into the public domain, and seeing what the quality and calibre of the work is.
I also look at it from this point of view. They have built the organisation from scratch. It has 280 staff, at the last count, from the last response that was given. When you build something at such an astronomical speed, you are going to have issues in terms of HR and the people-facing relationships. That aspect of it is not entirely surprising.
From the point of view of where our victims and survivors stand, it is around the issue of the outcomes that flow. There is certainly a large section of people currently who are waiting in the wings and not engaging with the process because of the missing element of the Irish state. They do not want to be part of a process that builds a report to a certain extent but then cannot conclude or will produce a jaundiced outcome for them. That is where the real concern is with our constituency presently.
Q38 Katrina Murray: Mark, do you want to make a comment on the process with ICRIR?
Mark Thompson: My view is clear. The view that we have taken, with legal advice, is that it is not compliant. It is unlawful. There are lots of problems around it. There is a lack of trust and confidence. That is centrally tied to the failed Legacy Act and everything that was around it to do with immunity and the provisions around that. We also have concerns—this will be in the legacy Bill as well—about the powers of the Secretary of State to veto information being given to families. All that is unhelpful.
In the round, from an Irish Government perspective, my own understanding, having given evidence to the Oireachtas committee and engaged there, is that if the Bill goes through Parliament and is enacted, and is compliant with the ECHR, that enables the next sequence of events for the Irish Government. The interstate case will fall. The process will proceed. They will then in turn legislate in compliance with that and we will have co-operation and an all-island dimension to it across both jurisdictions.
The current position is that we do not see that anything has changed. It is about the composition in terms of article 2 and article 3. It does not comply.
Sandra Peake: It is important to say that anyone who goes to ICRIR has our full support, if that is what they decide. We will work with them. If they feel the process is satisfactory, we will support that fully.
However, there are a number of difficulties. As Kenny said, ICRIR was set up at breakneck speed, and systems and processes were put in place. The argument will be made that it is a new organisation that is embedding in. They had a template; it was Operation Kenova. They were consistently told that it worked for families. I saw it work for families. In nine years, Operation Kenova spent the same amount of money as ICRIR has spent in two years. Operation Kenova produced reports. I understand that reports may be imminent from ICRIR, but, at the end of the day, two years on we do not have them.
That gets into where it is with families. Families have been told—I hate this term—that it is “the only show in town”. The word “show” is inappropriate. We are talking about an investigative process in relation to their loved ones’ murders. We see a number of issues. First, it does not have full policing powers, despite what we were led to believe at the start. The second thing, in relation to where families are, is the public nature of the process. We have consistently raised the issue of all the questions that families ask being published. That has not been satisfactory concluded. The reports have to be published. The big question is—it applies to the legislation coming in—who this process is for. If it is for families, it should be up to families whether to release that report. In Kenova, the families chose not to. Out of all Kenova, only two families released their reports. Even then, there would have been differences within the families about whether they would have liked that report released.
That is how it should be. It goes back to fear. Hypothetically, if I wanted to ask whether certain people were involved in my father’s murder—“Were my neighbours involved? Were other people involved?”—and that would come into the report, what would that do for community relations? You have reconciliation on the table here. That will be far from reconciliatory. It will cause very bad blood, if people read the types of questions that individuals may ask in the interests of uncovering what happened to their loved one. We have the intimacy of violence. People are living cheek by jowl with people who may well have been responsible for their loved ones’ deaths.
Fundamentally, the process is flawed. We need to get it right. Many families coming through have taken immense risks. Some families, because of the public nature, have chosen now not to go forward or are in a “wait and see” position. You then have many families, as Mark said—we have them in Wave—who have decided not to go there until they see a process that is reformed. That is what they want to see.
Q39 Chair: All three of you are experts in your field who are undoubtedly doing brilliant work with victims and survivors. You have spoken about Kenova and compared the process with ICRIR. How involved were you as organisations with Kenova, and are you involved at all with ICRIR?
Sandra Peake: We are. We are supporting families in ICRIR through advocacy. In relation to Kenova, we were actively involved with families. About 25 families in Wave went through Kenova processes. It is fair to say that, when Kenova started, we asked them, “What trust have you in this process?” and they said, “We have very little trust. We have been failed in the past. We have an outside team coming in”.
Jon Boutcher would laugh about this now. There was a whole sense that Jon Boutcher was an English copper who would be investigating his own. Therefore they did not have high expectations of what he would do initially. Within 18 months, he had nearly full trust from the families we engaged with. He said what he would deliver and he delivered for them, and they could see that. Why? They were put at the centre of the process. They had direct access to investigators; they worked alongside them. When investigators could not tell them something, they told them, “We cannot answer that. We may be able to answer that in the future, but not now”.
The other thing was that it was private. Whatever they said within the confines of that room to those investigators we did not see in paper. You did not read about it. There was no published list of the families who had engaged. We need to be very mindful of the sensitivity that is needed for families. We need to put families first to protect them in whatever way.
The other thing that I want to say—I have said it to this Committee before—is that we still have families who lost their loved ones not 10, 20 or 30 years ago and are still being smiled at, jeered at and sneered at by those who were involved in killing their loved ones. That is today. Therefore, anything that is public, anything that puts those families out there, anything that raises those issues could potentially bring danger to them.
Q40 Chair: I get that you are supporting the families who are going through the process, but do you engage with ICRIR at all?
Sandra Peake: We do engage with ICRIR. We will support the families in that process and in that engagement.
Kenny Donaldson: Yes. At the last count, our current caseload with ICRIR is circa 40 to 45 cases, involving around about 115 to 120 directly bereaved victims. Just to reiterate, we would not have aggressively sold engagement with that body. This is individuals who have come forward and said, “I want to give this a go”. That has been their perspective. We have given our analysis at all points throughout it, but we are here to support victims and survivors. That is their wish. They do not have other opportunities open to them. Many feel that they want to engage.
In terms of Op Kenova, we would not have had as fulsome an engagement with Op Kenova as some of the other organisations. We had a connection with a small number of cases through that structure.
Q41 Chair: Mark, I want to ask you a different question. I want to ask you about the FOI that you put in about the ICRIR. What additional concerns do you have?
Mark Thompson: There are so many FOIs that have gone in, from a collaboration of NGOs. In general, there is a reticence to be open and transparent. We had two cases in the jurisdiction. We had Justice Colton’s determination around the Legacy Act, which included ICRIR. We had the Court of Appeal, where the Government appealed, and then we had Dillon in terms of the Windsor framework and articles 2 and 3.
The general sense of it is that, from a judicial perspective, they are not giving a judgment on it in terms of saying that the process itself has not been seen, on paper, to be adjudicated on. The analysis that we have had both domestically and internationally from legal experts is that it is not compatible. We provide that analysis to families. There are a few families we work with who went to the process. Two of them have withdrawn from it due to unsatisfactory engagement over the course of a year or so.
In general terms, our view is that it is incapable of delivering. The recognition of that has to be seen in the Troubles Bill and the amendments that they are proposing to make to it. That has validated that viewpoint.
As Sandra has rightly pointed out, compared with Kenova, they are two completely different processes. Kenova was robust. Some families who engaged with Kenova—we were centrally engaged with it—were not satisfied, although many were. This will happen. The approach was completely different.
You can look at Jon Boutcher’s commentary around this and the position he took in respect to the gist of intelligence to be provided by the coroner. He was initially an applicant, with the Secretary of State in the previous Government, Mr Heaton-Harris, to challenge the coroner to provide a gist in the case of Paul Thompson, a young man killed in West Belfast by loyalist paramilitaries in April 1994, whose only surviving sibling was dying of cancer at the time when the case was in court, an7d passed before the Supreme Court ruling in that case.
Once Justice Humphreys ruled that the coroner was right and the gist should be provided to the family—to the next of kin—that went to the Supreme Court, and the machinations around that and the outworking of that were completely unsatisfactory. Jon Boutcher went in support of that family and visited that dying man to tell him that he would do that because he knew the intelligence and he knew it was not detrimental to national security. It was about healing, recovery and reconciliation. Yet it was not provided. If we look at his position in the case of Sean Brown, he thinks there should be an inquiry and it will not prejudice national security. When families hear the term “reconciliation”, they see it sometimes as code—because trust has been so fundamentally broken—for “cover‑up”. “Let us get reconciliation and apologies, and leave the difficult stuff over there, the answers”. That is generally how families view it—with suspicion.
Q42 Robin Swann: I just want to pick up where Mark was there in regard to the definition of “reconciliation” and what it actually means. We have already heard from the three of you this morning different views as to what it means to you, to your organisations and to the families and victims you represent. We have heard those concerns from some of our inquiry submissions. The Government have not defined what they mean by “reconciliation” in the legacy legislation. At the same time, we have heard that reconciliation is a contested and difficult concept to define.
In your view, how should the Government approach the definition of reconciliation? Should they go down that route at all, or should they leave that space as to what it means to different people?
Chair: Before you answer that, we are running short of time, so we will need to be brief to get through these questions. We will have to write to you as well.
Sandra Peake: First, the last Government put reconciliation before information retrieval. That seemed to be the emphasis. To me, that was inappropriate. We can all agree on a number of things, Robin. I go back to the contribution of that lady, which I started with: to face the past openly and honestly, and to understand that healing does not mean forgetting.
We can all agree that at the heart of this needs to be a properly resourced victim and survivor-centred legacy process. That should be the priority before any reconciliation process. It is putting one before the other.
Do I think that reconciliation should be there? Absolutely, yes, in terms of making mechanisms available in relation to a number of areas. In relation to legacy, it should focus on addressing the past. That is what we need.
Q43 Robin Swann: Do you believe there should be a sequential order, then— that they cannot work in tandem?
Sandra Peake: That prioritisation is where it was wrong before. In some ways, reconciliation was the emphasis as opposed to the actual investigative process. Legacy should not have reconciliation in it. The ultimate aim should be a society with better understanding and individuals who are freed from the past. We should acknowledge what has happened in the past. People should feel that they have been heard and that their loved ones mattered. That should be the end result of this.
The priority at the moment should not be to have that on the table in relation to the legacy process; it should be about addressing the past.
Q44 Robin Swann: Mark, in your opening comments you specifically mentioned the definition of reconciliation being in the Troubles Bill. What is your view?
Mark Thompson: I thought that was disingenuous. I thought they frontloaded that in an attempt to sell it. When you saw the detail and the actual intention of it, there was widespread opposition, not only across the community but politically as well, for what it was seeking to do.
My sense is that reconciliation can be a very personal thing. It can be religious. It can be about neighbourliness and moving forward, but you cannot paper over the cracks. The fundamentals are that people need to know who did what to whom. We need some sort of truth and accountability process that enables us then to move forward on a pathway towards communal reconciliation and a better understanding of what happened. That needs to be accepted and not dismissed.
At times, victims will say, “My experience is demoted or dismissed” even by the commentary and debate within the UK Parliament. Some of the vitriol, speeches and the heated environment have been completely disturbing for the families. If you look at the Centre for Military Justice, which has the right approach to this in terms of upholding and applying the rule of law, when you see some of the vitriol you say to yourself, “Maybe a bit of reconciliation and humility is needed within the Chambers”. It is now impossible to get past that when you have people defending some of the atrocities. We need to get past that.
Kenny Donaldson: Again, it is how you frame this: a piecemeal or procedural type of reconciliation versus something that is substantive. In this area, all of us, each and every day, have opportunities to promote a better way.
The difficulty in Northern Ireland is about which prism you look at it through. Are we at peace or are we in a position of stand-off? Certainly, our position as an organisation is that we are in a position of stand-off. We are not yet in a place of peace. Each and every day the troubles are being played out within Northern Ireland in many different contexts. The goading of victims and survivors from all backgrounds keeps this so raw for people.
It is not that in 1998 we came to a place where everybody committed to the same rulebook around how victims and survivors would be treated, and agreed that they would be treated with dignity and respect with no efforts in any way to retraumatise them—it has been quite the reverse.
We need to look at Northern Ireland in the cold light of day. We need to look at what it is today, what is happening day and daily, and how systemic violence glorification is at the heart of what our life is. If we genuinely want to move to a place where the majority of Northern Ireland that has not been touched by these issues can have a form of ease of life, and those who have been directly impacted can also benefit from what is supposedly a peace dividend, we really need to get to grips with all of that.
Q45 Gavin Robinson: Good morning to you, Mark. Do you mind if I ask you questions about article 2 compliance very briefly? You mentioned that you had taken legal advice and you had concerns about ICRIR and its article 2 compliance. The Supreme Court has ruled in Dillon that it is compliant and that it has the ability to be independent and effective. Have you sought new legal advice or have you revised your position at all, given that the law has been determined by the Supreme Court?
Mark Thompson: I would not have the same interpretation of the Supreme Court in Dillon. My view would stand, in terms of our own Court of Appeal in our own jurisdiction, about family involvement and the extent of family involvement and participation as a key element of article 2.
Q46 Gavin Robinson: Do you accept that in Dillon the Supreme Court rejected the challenge to article 2 compliance of ICRIR?
Mark Thompson: I do not think that is exactly the case. In my understanding of Dillon, ICRIR has not been tested on paper as a process. That goes back to what Justice Colton said while upholding the ban on civil cases and the immunity provisions, declaring them unlawful and asking them to be disapplied. He said that he could not arrive at a decision on ICRIR being article 2 compliant because the process had not been run through. There is not a test of it completing a report against which it could be tested in terms of its robustness on article 2. My interpretation and the advice that we have on Dillon is similar, notwithstanding the fact that Dillon might end up at Strasbourg.
Q47 Gavin Robinson: Yes. Has there been an application for an appeal at this stage?
Mark Thompson: I am not exactly sure of that. There is a discussion about it. There may be.
Q48 Gavin Robinson: Thank you. It is helpful to know the difference between a legal point and a campaigning point. It is useful to acknowledge that the Supreme Court is—
Mark Thompson: If you look at our Court of Appeal—if you would take that on board—I would tend to be in that position.
Q49 Gavin Robinson: Yes. The Supreme Court then looks at the Court of Appeal. That is the legal system that we have in this jurisdiction.
Mark Thompson: Then Strasbourg will look at it.
Q50 Gavin Robinson: That is what I was asking. Are you aware whether that is happening now?
Mark Thompson: My view is that, yes, it is under active consideration.
Q51 Gavin Robinson: Thank you very much.
Sandra, it is good to see you this morning. We have talked a lot this morning, and each of you has the ability to say things that sound incredibly similar and yet there are distinct differences. In reconciliation, that is all too important when we consider acknowledgment, healing and truth. They can have different meanings for different people. You will have within your organisations individuals for whom the truth can differ, and you can manage a process where there is an acknowledgment of each other’s understanding, but that does not necessarily mean that two people have the same understanding at the start or the end of the process. What do victims and survivors need for an acknowledgment process to be credible?
Sandra Peake: Yes, people may not agree on the truth, but they will know whether the process is genuine, they will know how they have been made to feel and they will know whether it is trauma-informed. That is what people will reflect on: “How was I made to feel? Does my loved one matter? Is the death being accounted for in the way that it should?” They will know that. That is your gut reaction within your inner being.
What do they need for acknowledgment? They need a number of things. We have campaigned for 13 years for the injured pension. The troubles permanent disablement payment scheme has ended for new applications as of 30 August. One of the big fall-outs of that was the bereaved, and I want to put on record that there needs to be acknowledgment of the bereaved. We want to see a process for them. That scheme, in the way that it was structured, was for those who were injured. Many bereaved fell out of it because they did not meet the criteria. That became another sense of injustice. It became another sense of, “I am not being recognised”. I have heard a lot of pain and distress from the bereaved. That needs to happen in relation to how we move forward.
The other thing for many people is around having bespoke services and ensuring that they can get services when they need them and in the way that they need them. That might be support to go through processes or to have a voice around processes.
I believe that trauma education is vital. We need to be equipping the next generation of our frontline health and social care. Victims and survivors are leading the way there. The General Medical Council has reviewed their work as an area of notable practice. The Northern Ireland Social Care Council has said that all social work training must include input from victims and survivors. They are trying to use something that was so destructive and negative for positive ends.
The other thing that we need to address is the damaging rhetoric around legacy that has built up in relation to that sense of value, worth and place. We look at the events last week in relation to the desecration of a monument acknowledging people. We look at that before in relation to poppies being strewn all over the place. You look at it in relation to families who have left flowers. There are so many examples of where that causes so much distress to families and moves so far away from an acknowledgment process.
Gavin Robinson: Yes. You are rightly referring to Ormeau Road last week.
Sandra Peake: Yes.
Q52 Gavin Robinson: The memorial should not have been attacked but it was. That has an impact on families who, irrespective of what went before, are bereaved and have suffered loss. Yes, I take that point—thank you.
Kenny, you talked about accountability in your first answer. You said there needs to be accountability. You also talked about humility and individuals being humble in this. What do you think about the acknowledgment process? What does it require to be credible? How hard a process is that with the ongoing existence of paramilitaries?
Kenny Donaldson: It is deeply challenging. I heard a very poignant comment from a widow one evening, only about four or five weeks back. We were talking about these issues and what hope she had for the future of this place. When I asked her, “What is acknowledgment for you now?”, she said, “I just wish that they would stop murdering him.”
What she meant by that was that her husband was murdered once, but he has continued to be murdered ever since. Earlier, we heard commentary around the unfortunate language that different people in political life have used, which then had to be retracted, and rightly so. There is language that sits within our society that talks about how there was no alternative to the violence, or a variation on that language. That is deeply dangerous. Each time a victim or survivor hears that, they are hearing that their loved one had no worth and that all of this was inevitable, unavoidable or in fact necessary to bring us to this place that we currently are. That is the greatest lie that exists within our society currently. Unfortunately, it is held by many people.
Around acknowledgment, we have said that acknowledgment that is choreographed, where you wait until the end of a process and you then have begrudging statements from whoever around the ills of the past, is not the way to go forward with this.
We need a front and centre initial gambit that says, “In the parameters of what happened here, the use of violence and murder was wrong”. Whatever form it comes in, nobody should get off lightly—the proscribed organisations and the states need to look at that deeply. That is the starter; then you get down into the more individual-based accountability. That looks very different for different people.
Yes, there are outstanding issues with the bereaved. There is the need for the provision of services and the continuance of all of that. Ultimately, I go back to that initial comment: “I wish they would stop murdering him”.
Q53 Gavin Robinson: Thanks, Kenny. Mark, it is about acknowledgment, how to make the process credible and the ongoing presence of paramilitaries. You have said in the past, “It cannot be externally imposed through political will or ideological narratives and processes, nor can it be achieved by expecting victims and families to accept apologies for wrongdoing committed during the conflict which are mere gestures of contrition, empty rhetoric void of authenticity.” Do you have any expectation that there will be or can be acknowledgment by paramilitary organisations that were responsible for 90% of all deaths during the troubles?
Mark Thompson: I was part of a broad process in Healing Through Remembering in which we talked about statements of acknowledgment by all sides, which included non-state and state actors to the conflict, as a starting point. I still stand by that. A process that had that would be very valuable—
Q54 Gavin Robinson: I do not mean to interrupt you; it is just that we are under time pressure here. From what you have heard, have you come across many examples that would meet your test, that are not devoid of empty rhetoric, that are genuine, and that acknowledge the pain and suffering inflicted on our society by paramilitaries or state actors?
Mark Thompson: There have been individual instances where they have been genuine. I can think of some instances where republicans have been involved, and loyalists and the state. It gives some hope.
I do agree. Paramilitary organisations, such as Ulster Resistance, were responsible for many of the deaths and for importing weapons. They were connected to your own party, Gavin. It would be good if we had a statement from you and from Ulster Resistance about their commitment.
I look at the recent apology, albeit a 15-second one, in the House of Commons after the Springhill inquest, which was valuable. They received a written letter. I look at the case of young Angela Gallagher, who was killed by the IRA in West Belfast, where there was a fulsome account and apology. I look at the case of Paul Crawford. There is stuff that we can build on, yes.
Gavin Robinson: We did talk earlier about the difference between campaigning points and the law. I will just leave that there.
Q55 Sorcha Eastwood: Gavin has covered those points comprehensively, but I just wanted to draw out something that you have all raised. For the purposes of time, Chair, we can possibly just accept Sandra’s answer.
You raised the issue of families engaging with ICRIR. It is my understanding from my own constituents that often they are handed reports and are, for all intents and purposes, told to go away and read them or understand them in their own time. They are just not capable of that, not because they are not intelligent but because it is an incredible burden on them.
You mentioned how much money ICRIR has had in terms of the number of cases that it has dealt with in comparison to Kenova, for example. Between Wave, RFJ, SEFF and others, is there a recognition that ICRIR cannot serve its function ethically unless it accepts or acknowledges that, without the role of your organisations, it would not be possible to do that in a way that provides ethical aftercare to families and that that should be reflected in resource?
Sandra Peake: We have been very clear in relation to ICRIR that we wanted to see reform to the point where it was unrecognisable. That was about putting the victim and survivor at the centre. We wanted to see it move back to an Operation Kenova process in relation to having direct access to investigators who were working directly with the families and providing what the families needed.
There should not be this separate process where different people would be writing reports from the people who were investigating, because that opens up the opportunity, inevitably, for people not to reflect fully what the investigation team may have intended or meant in relation to their findings.
Ultimately, we want a trauma-informed process, where families are placed in the centre. That is what I saw Operation Kenova do well. It did it well because it engaged from the very start on a very clear trauma pathway. It ensured that it was sensitive to the very particular cultural and contextual circumstances that exist in Northern Ireland, because language matters. Language matters to families. It came at that in a very open way. That is what we want to see. We want to see reform.
Q56 Sorcha Eastwood: Just broadly, Sandra, in case I have not been clear, for the avoidance of doubt, are your organisations resourced adequately to deal with the people who are engaging with ICRIR, knowing that it has had an awful lot of financial resource thrown at it? Is there a reflection in terms of the funding given to you, SEFF, RFJ, etc?
Sandra Peake: No, we are not. Legacy brings people forward who need care, support and therapeutic services. All our organisations are under huge pressures in relation to not having sufficient money to deliver that and having very long waiting lists.
Conversely, ICRIR has put in place a support process that I understand individuals have not tapped into. They have returned back to the groups that have supported them the whole way through. That consistency is very important. Resourcing is a huge issue. Legacy needs also to be around looking after those who are coming forward for help.
All of us will face big challenges over the next number of months. Certainly, we are sitting with long waiting lists and high levels of people who are wanting to come into services.
When the last Government put forward their legacy legislation, we had over a thousand new referrals from bereaved people within 18 months—people we had never seen before, people we had never met before, but who felt they needed to come forward. We need to acknowledge that. There is a cost to not dealing with legacy and there is a fundamental cost to supporting people to get the right outcomes out of the processes that exist.
Chair: We will be writing to you all with additional questions. Thank you for your time today.
Witness: Joe McVey.
Q57 Chair: For panel two in this session of our reconciliation inquiry, we welcome Joe McVey, the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors for Northern Ireland. Joe, can you outline your role in promoting the commission and reconciliation?
Joe McVey: Thank you for inviting me along this morning. It is nice to see some familiar faces. Fundamentally, the purpose of the commission is to understand, promote and support the rights, needs and interests of victims and survivors.
In the context of reconciliation, as you have heard this morning from other colleagues, victims and survivors are some of the most forward-looking and resilient individuals you could ever hope to meet. I will maybe just change the tone slightly, because I am sure that if I was sitting on your side of the table listening to all that this morning, I might find it incredibly depressing and worrying.
In contrast to that, rather than seeing victims and survivors as a barrier to reconciliation, victims and survivors are the key to reconciliation. That needs to be recognised, as does the work of the infrastructure organisations. Sandra and her colleagues have been here. Again, it is key to reconciliation that their work is supported and adequately funded.
Chair, in response, we are here to try to build a better future for home. Again, some Members around this table will have met victims and survivors. They are incredibly forward-looking and positive. Sometimes the perception is that we are all living in the past and that, if we would all just forget about things, it would be grand. These are the people who are the key to making our place better.
Q58 Chair: In your written evidence—thank you for that—you describe reconciliation as a complex societal issue and note that it is unfair for victims to be expected to deliver it for society. Could you expand on those concerns and the potential consequences of framing reconciliation in that way?
Joe McVey: Again, you heard earlier from colleagues the concern from victims and survivors that reconciliation somehow sits on their shoulders. Victims and survivors, in some cases, have been advised over the years, “If you would just go away and draw a line”—and all those very hurtful phrases—“things would be grand”. That is completely unfair.
Talking to victims and survivors, and working very closely with our forum, reconciliation is a societal issue. It requires a number of elements to be in place before we can say that we have reconciled. Some of those are in the gift of victims and survivors, but a lot of them are in the gift of politicians in terms of political leadership. They are also about how society is managed and supported, and about how we deal with paramilitary influences. There is a whole range of societal elements that have to be in place as well as ensuring that we understand the needs of victims and survivors now and going forward.
David Smith: Good morning, Joe. How are you?
Joe McVey: It is good to see you again.
Q59 David Smith: It is 28 years, thereabouts, since the Good Friday agreement. It is about four or five years since the Legacy Act was first mooted. It is three years since it was passed by the last Government. It is two years since the current Government were elected on a manifesto to repeal and replace the Legacy Act with the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. What has been the impact of that delay or failure to adequately deal with the past on victims and survivors?
Joe McVey: Picking up from the question from Katrina earlier on, as you have said, there has been a cycle of initiatives and proposals since the Good Friday/Belfast agreement almost 30 years ago now. Over the years, there has been a range of initiatives. Every time there is an initiative, there is, as all of us would expect, a degree of hope and expectation. That is quickly replaced by disappointment, despondency and cynicism.
In working with victims and survivors, we constantly hear, “Well, we will give this another chance. We will give it our support in the hope that, in this case, the Troubles Bill might get over the line and it might help support and move things forward”. It impacts people on a daily basis. Again, fundamentally, a number of individuals we work with, as Sandra and the team and her colleagues said, are very vulnerable and very anxious. To be very blunt about it, a lot of them are getting very old and will pass on before there is any resolution for them. It constantly leads to this sense of uncertainty and that sense of, “We do not matter and our experiences do not matter”.
You mentioned acknowledgment earlier on. It is very hard to feel that you are being acknowledged if, yet again, you have either a failed process or a process that has been stalled. We heard earlier on about High Court cases and very serious judicial matters. Those are really important, but the victims and survivors are reading that as, “Here is another delay”. It causes untold harm to people.
Q60 David Smith: I will ask a follow-up to that and withdraw my later question, Chair. You mentioned acknowledgment, Joe. There is this quasi-judicial process that we have had and will have through Legacy Commission. There is a desire for it to work among victims and survivors. Especially when you put it in the context of the length of time since the Good Friday agreement, how does that compare to the desire or hope for acknowledgment?
You just used the word “acknowledgment”, which, in my opinion, is the most important aspect that is really missing from dealing with the past in Northern Ireland. We have had some debate or discussion around this table about individuals and organisations or groups of people sincerely making acknowledgment of the things that they did. In the eyes of victims and survivors, how does this quasi-judicial Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, legacy Bill or whatever, compared with the need, desire or demand for sincere acknowledgment?
Joe McVey: Unfortunately, it is not either/or. I will very briefly just illustrate that. I met last Thursday an individual whose family member was murdered over 40 years ago. This individual has not sought to go down the path of justice or seeking financial compensation. This individual said to me very clearly that, after 40-odd years, they just want their story heard and they want the pain and suffering that they have endured to be heard. That is all. It is very personal and fundamental. It will be the same for all of us. If harm has been done to us, we want people to recognise that they have done harm.
In tandem with that, you do need acknowledgment managed and presented in lockstep between the two Governments and the paramilitary organisations that caused harm. Those things are very important symbolically. I would reference a lot of the work that Professor Kieran McEvoy has done on that at Queen’s.
It also needs to be backed up by action. Words on their own are only so much. Again, we have heard about the work that has been done, for example, through the Victims’ Payments Board. That is a fantastic example of £150 million that has been invested in people who were totally disabled through the troubles and conflict. We have had the setting up of the Regional Trauma Network. These are all really important initiatives. There has been great work done by the organisations on the ground and the support services that are currently there. Those are all very important building blocks that support those mere words.
Again, as Sandra has alluded to, one of the missing pieces in the jigsaw is the need for a payment for the bereaved and a scheme to bring that forward. You do need acknowledgment from Governments and other actors. You also need to back that up with action.
Q61 Gavin Robinson: Good morning, Joe—it is nice to see you. My question is about reconciliation, how hard a concept it is to define, and how your experience and the opportunity that you have had to engage with many victims in your role might give you a better understanding as to whether it is a concept that Government can define, never mind deliver.
Hilary Benn, our former Secretary of State, always used to say that it is not Government’s role to—and nor can they ever—reconcile one person’s heart to another or one person’s heart to the circumstances that they faced. Do you believe that Government can define reconciliation? If you believe they can, how do you believe it should be defined?
Joe McVey:. Again, I would go back to the earlier question that Robin raised about this matter. We have heard this morning lots of very valid examples of definitions of reconciliation. From the commission’s point of view, I would reference my earlier comment about it being a societal issue. For Government, it is possibly more helpful to set out parameters or elements that contribute to reconciliation.
There was a report last week published by Queen’s about a peace index, as they describe it. It talked about negative peace and positive peace. Negative peace is where—thankfully, this is where we are at the moment—we are not killing each other. In a sense, that is great. Positive peace ties into reconciliation and the elements that you need to have reconciliation around acknowledging the role of victims and survivors, acknowledging the role of Governments both here and in the Republic of Ireland, and acknowledging the changes you might want to look at in society in terms of education, segregation and paramilitary elements. To me, it is about the Government saying, “Here is a framework and here are the things that we expect to happen, based on experience from across the world”.
When we talk about reconciliation, it is important to acknowledge, as I said earlier, that it is not on the shoulders of victims of survivors. They have a contribution to make and they have a place, but, from a parliamentary point of view, it is perhaps more useful to talk about a framework or elements that you would expect to see in place.
I know Sir Chris Bryant will not like this, but it is also about making sure that we have the investment in reconciliation. Over the years, we have had numerous initiatives and support for various programmes of reconciliation, but the funding runs out after a year and we are back to square one.
Q62 Gavin Robinson: The legislation that we are considering at the moment as a Parliament, and the legislation that was passed in 2023, do not have a funding strand for reconciliation attached. It is an afterthought.
Joe McVey: I appreciate that time is short, but, fundamentally, that is one of our big issues around legacy and the mechanisms that are set up. We have heard that money is being invested in ICRIR. We will also have a truth recovery body. We will also have the work under part 4. Again, money seems to be an afterthought. In my view, that is not the way to approach this.
Q63 Katrina Murray: We have already talked about part 4 falling short of what is required to support reconciliation meaningfully, so that it risks becoming symbolic rather than substantive. Do you agree with that?
Joe McVey: Yes, there is a real danger of that. Part 4, in terms of memorialisation, oral history and looking at themes and patterns in how we learn from the past, is really important. Again, there is a danger of it being symbolic because of, first, the lack of funding and, secondly, the lack of clarity in what is meant by it.
I know it is not always great to go back, but if you look back and compare it with the Stormont House agreement, that work was done under a very strong and a very coherent implementation plan. That is really important. I know sometimes people do not look back, but that was a very good example, where there was an implementation plan, involving both Governments and our Executive, and a whole programme of work. That is not there at the moment.
It does appear, because it was in the former Bill, simply to have been left. The sense that we are getting is, “It is too difficult to deal with. When the Bill goes through, we hope we can do the work”. That is not accurate or appropriate.
Q64 Katrina Murray: If you were given one priority to be able to change that, how would you do it?
Joe McVey: In relation to part 4, as with a lot of elements of the Bill, we should strengthen the whole victim and survivors focus, and make sure that it is informed and supported by victim and survivors. At the moment, it is not. Again, it is one of those things—this is a theme of the Bill—where too much power is being offered to the Secretary of State.
Q65 Katrina Murray: When the proposed victims and survivors advisory group is established, what oversight or engagement would you see it having with part 4?
Joe McVey: As with other mechanisms that exist, including the current ICRIR and the proposed information recovery body, you need a very strong victims and survivors advisory group, which is going to guide and determine what the work is going to be. It will have a place in terms of the selection of people involved. To put it very bluntly, it will need to make sure that victims and survivors are at the heart of this, because too often what happens is that these bodies are established, and victims and survivors are there either as a token or as a last thought. They need to be in at the beginning as we design this.
The design of these mechanisms is often done by very clever people who perhaps do not often sit down with victims and survivors and ask, “What would work for you?”, as opposed to what looks good up on a whiteboard.
Q66 Simon Hoare: Commissioner, it is good to see you again. We all recognise the massive importance of education. It plays a critical role in confronting the legacy of violence. What is your assessment of how effectively it is delivered in Northern Ireland to engage young people with the reality of the troubles, to avoid glamourisation and to remind people, in a sensible and factual way, of the horror of the blood, violence and disruption and how it held back Northern Irish society and indeed the Northern Irish economy for so long?
Joe McVey: Education is key. Again, Sandra alluded to the community education work that Wave does. We were delighted to see that the Department of Education, under Gavin’s colleague, has brought forward a proposal to look at the introduction of a troubles element for 11 to 14-year-olds. It is key stage 3 for those who remember those times—a long time ago.
That is really important because, in schools both north and south, there is a danger that we do not educate young people talk about the facts as opposed to the narrative. We very much welcome that. We are currently consulting with victims and survivors as to how that might be developed and what might be in it. That is very important.
The other element we are seeing comes back to Katrina’s question about part 4. We have recently worked with the Northern Ireland Youth Forum and other partners from Nottingham University to develop an oral history toolkit, which has been developed by young people and will be used by young people in schools in both formal and informal education settings.
To your point, Simon, it is really important that we do it and, again, that it is resourced. I would argue that it should become a mandatory part of the curriculum because, if it does not become mandatory, what happens is that, unfortunately, it depends on what subjects you do. All of us need to know our history in a factual way.
Q67 Simon Hoare: Given the fact that education in Northern Ireland remains overwhelmingly segregated, do you have any assessment as to any disadvantage or distinct benefit that you have been able to identify that it might have in an educational setting that is not segregated?
Joe McVey: There are many people who would promote and support integrated education in itself. I think it is very valuable. There is sometimes a concern—this is a purely personal view—that it can be seen as the answer to all our problems. That is maybe a bit optimistic.
Again, within our current system, I would strongly urge the need for education about the troubles in a factual way. Across all schools there should be a consistency and a sense of balance. Probably all of us remember that in school, if any subject is not set out in a very detailed way in the curriculum, you have personal interpretations from peers, teachers and the school ethos. As much as we can, putting it on a factual basis would be very helpful.
Q68 Robin Swann: Commissioner, you have mentioned a number of times that reconciliation is societal. In regard to the perspective of victims and survivors, how does the ongoing presence of paramilitaries and paramilitary organisations affect the prospect of societal reconciliation?
Joe McVey: It is a complete contradiction to talk about reconciliation when paramilitaries are still active. Since 1998, we have had 150 deaths attributed to paramilitaries. Hundreds of people have been and continue to be injured. We also have intergenerational trauma. Paramilitaries are active in communities and actively recruiting. Consider the damage that that does on young people’s lives and their prospects.
As a commission, we have engaged very heavily with Fleur Ravensbergen, who is doing work at the moment on paramilitaries on behalf of both the British Government and the Irish Government. We look forward to seeing that report because we are at a crossroads point at the moment in terms of how we have dealt with paramilitaries, how we perceive them and how we have supported them, if that is the right word, at the cost of communities. It is very important. I do not think you can ever reconcile society when paramilitaries are still actively involved.
Q69 Chair: We heard from the other panel about the ICRIR. Do you have any opinions on how effective it is in delivering for victims and survivors?
Joe McVey: I would probably reiterate most of the comments that have been made, mindful of how difficult it is to set up an organisation from scratch. You have 300 staff; you have invested £60 million. You are trying to bring people together. It is important to acknowledge the difficulties in doing that.
In terms of victims and survivors, we are really very concerned at the commission by the comments that we are hearing and the work we are doing with groups. We have gone out and done our own consultation on how the commission is being viewed. At the moment, people are very concerned. Confidence is at a very low ebb. Again, it is—I have used the phrase before—a crossroads point for the commission.
People are holding out to see what comes out in their first report. There is a hope that other reports will flow. That is something very positive. At the same time, we are looking at how it is structured and how it does its work. It does seem to be overly engineered, overly bureaucratic and far removed from the very strong family focus of Kenova, which Sandra has alluded to. That is not to hold Kenova up as some shining beacon, but it is simply to say that, in any process that involves victims and survivors, the families have to come first. You have to have a system where case workers, investigation staff, all teams are working together to deliver for victims and survivors and their families.
At the moment, ICRIR appears to be overly bureaucratic and overly engineered. That is not to say it cannot change, but victims and survivors will be looking at it very clearly over the next quarter to see, first, what the product is and, secondly, what changes will be introduced to make it more effective.
Chair: We look forward to finding out how it changes to be more effective, because that is really important. Joe, thank you for your time today.
Joe McVey: Thank you, Chair. It was a pleasure.