JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT debate -
Thursday, 19 Jan 2012

Business of Joint Committee

Chairman

Apologies have been received from Lady Sylvia Hermon, MP; Conor Murphy, MP; Paul Maskey, MP; and Deputy Regina Doherty. I remind everyone to switch off his or her mobile phone. It is not enough to leave it in silent mode, as it will interfere with the recording equipment.

I welcome and introduce committee members to Ms Bridget Doody who has replaced Mr. Paul Kelly as clerk to the committee. I can speak for us all when I say the committee looks forward to working with her in the coming months and years. I record my thanks and those of the committee for the work of Mr. Kelly who was clerk to the committee since its establishment in 2007. I understand he is now working with the Joint Committee on Health and Children.

I have circulated the minutes of the meeting of 8 December 2011. Are they agreed to? Agreed.

There are two items of correspondence which I wish to deal with before we move to the main item on the agenda. The first is a reply from the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, to the letter we wrote to him about the board of NAMA. Members will recall that we asked if he would consider appointing someone from the North to the board of NAMA. We have received a response from him. As agreed previously, it is proposed that we meet the chief executive of NAMA and I believe a meeting has been set up for late February or early March. I, therefore, propose that we note the response of the Minister. Is that agreed? Agreed.

We have received an e-mail from Deputy Seán Crowe who is seeking to raise the issue of funding to pay the rent and meet the running costs of the Dublin office of Justice for the Forgotten. Does the Deputy wish to say something about the request made?

Deputy Seán Crowe

The committee met some members of the Dublin-Monaghan committee in Monaghan on its recent trip. There is a difficulty in regard to funding. It received funding from the Pat Finucane centre. The full-time member of staff, Ms Margaret Irwin, is present. The money comes from European Union funding. The difficulty is that the funding only covers Border areas but the office is in Dublin. It is facing a crisis and may have to close. It is looking for support and asked us to put it on the agenda and support its application. There was some discussion with the group and we were asked us to forward our concerns. There are a lot of outstanding issues. Motions have been passed in the Dáil on the issue. The committee is still unearthing a lot of information and a lot of positive work is being done with relatives and so on. It is a small amount of money. There are difficulties with funding across the board.

Chairman

Senator Mary White also raised the matter. We met members of the Justice for the Forgotten campaign last Thursday in Monaghan. Ms Irwin from the Dublin office was there and briefed us on the situation. We also met relatives of four of the victims of the May 1974 Monaghan bombings. Members found it a very educational visit, tinged with sadness for the memory of the victims. At that stage we were asked to look at the issue of funding. I understand the figure involved is €20,000.

Deputy Seán Crowe

It is €17,000.

Chairman

It is not a huge amount of money. On behalf of the committee, I will write to the Minister asking whether the funding could be made available to the group for its continued efforts on achieving justice.