I thank the Chairman for his introduction. I thank him again for the kind invitation to come before the committee today to comment on the role of the Commission for Victims and Survivors and our key priorities for the future.
I am grateful to the committee for affording me the opportunity to discuss a number of issues that directly affect the lives of victims and survivors. Despite the passage of time, including some 15 years after the signing of the Agreement, there are many victims and survivors who continue to suffer from the devastating effects of the Troubles.
I express my pleasant surprise and gratitude to see members of Justice for the Forgotten, Ms Margaret Irwin and Ms Bernadette Joly, here today. I acknowledge their tireless work. They are an important reminder to us all of why we do what we do for victims and survivors.
As the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors in Northern Ireland, I believe passionately in the work of the commission to promote the rights of all victims and survivors to be heard, to be respected and to have access to services that are the best they can be. Over the past year, there has been a significant amount of reflection and comment around the 15th anniversary of the signing of the Agreement. Before providing the committee with an update on the work of the commission, it is worth briefly highlighting the commitments made to victims by the signatories to the Agreement.
The Agreement, as I am sure the committee will recall, states:
It is recognised that victims have a right to remember as well as to contribute to a changed society. The achievement of a peaceful and just society would be the true memorial to the victims of violence.
Significantly, the Agreement goes on to state that "The participants [to the negotiations] particularly recognise that young people from areas affected by the troubles face particular difficulties and will support the development of special community-based initiatives based on international best practice".
It is important to recall these commitments contained in the Agreement because they represent a formal recognition of the need to address effectively the needs of victims and survivors, including past and present generations. I will return to the issues of trans-generational impact of the conflict later but it is important to set the work of the commission within the context of the commitments contained in the Agreement.
Our vision at the commission is to improve the lives of all victims and survivors. What does a victims commissioner do? My role is defined in statute but it is essentially to promote the interests of victims and survivors. It is simple, except, of course, that it is not. In Northern Ireland there are many things that are contested and the definition of "victim" is one of them. The law, as it stands, is clear and states that a victim is someone who has been injured, someone who has been bereaved or someone caring for someone who has been injured. The injury can be physical or psychological. It would seem on the face of it to be straightforward. There are many in Northern Ireland who believe there should be a distinction between victims, that there are innocent victims and that "victim makers" should not be included in the definition of victim, that those who set out to kill and maim with guns or bombs and are killed themselves or injured as a result should be afforded no assistance whatsoever. Other commentators have said that this approach does not appear to allow for those who were killed as a result of state collusion, those who were killed or injured, for example, in the events of Bloody Sunday, or the Ballymurphy families. Despite apologies from the Westminster Government, there seems to be little acknowledgment that these families and their loved ones were absolutely and completely innocent. Positions become entrenched and no one hears the other opinion as their opinion is the right one. It is as though, by the very act of listening honestly and carefully, there could be a contamination. Maybe then what is really being talked about, it has been suggested, is a hierarchy of blame. After 18 months in post, one thing I am certain of is that there must never be a hierarchy of pain. I have heard said on many occasions that the tears of the victim's mother are the same colour as those of the mother of the man who set the bomb. No one wins and everyone hurts.
I acknowledge the comments made by the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, during his address to the British Irish Association in October last. I was in the room that day and I was particularly struck by his insightful comments in recognising the responsibilities of us all in dealing with the complex and challenging issues related to our troubled past.
Since I took up post, I have spent time with many individuals who have direct experience of the Troubles and who live with those experiences and the difficulties they bring every day. When asked about what my priorities are as commissioner, it is quite simple - to listen, to support, to advise, to care and to safeguard those who have been affected by our troubled past. I have met people who have been bereaved, I have met those that have been injured, both physically and psychologically, and I have met people who are caring for a loved one who is bereaved or injured.
Those affected have various needs and it is imperative that we all take responsibility for ensuring that we address them properly. The needs vary. Obviously people require adequate resources and treatment, support and help, access to social support and access to help to obtain the justice and truth they deserve, if that is what they want.
The committee has asked that we brief it on the commission's priorities. I would like to do this by initially taking it through the work of the Victims and Survivors Forum. I will then highlight a number of key areas of work based on the commission's three key strategic priorities, namely, building for the future, dealing with the past and improving services for victims.
One of my primary duties as commissioner is to make arrangements for a forum for consultation and discussion for victims and survivors. Strengthening the role and enhancing the profile and work of the Victims and Survivors Forum has been one of my priorities since coming into office. The forum currently has 22 members, 19 of whom meet the definition of victim and are representative of the breadth of victim experience. There are three associate members, who bring their unique experience to enrich the work of the forum. It is important for me to reinforce the contribution made by forum members as volunteers who meet once a month, at a minimum, to inform the work of the commission. The work of the forum increasingly underpins the work of the commission. It has become a resource for the commission to discuss and identify live issues for victims and survivors across three working groups, which concern dealing with the past, services, and building for the future.
In the past year, the forum's working groups have continued to meet regularly, engaging with a range of academics, politicians and other key stakeholders to inform their work. Examples of meetings include those with Lord Freud and Minister McCausland on welfare reform and the Attorney General to discuss the implications of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights for victims and survivors. Importantly, last November, the forum met Dr. Richard Haass in addition to all of the political representatives that comprised the panel of parties to the Haass negotiations.
I will return briefly to the impact of the forum in informing the work of the commission but at this point I must emphasise the significant and positive impact of the forum on victim and survivor issues. In my opening remarks, I noted the commitment to victims and survivors contained in the Agreement. In the years following the Agreement, it was lauded internationally for aligning the process of political transition with the recognition of the rights of children and young people, including those affected by the trans-generational impact of the conflict. Developing our understanding and responding effectively to the negative impact of the conflict's legacy on the lives of young people in Northern Ireland is a primary area of concern for the commission.
Fifteen years after the Agreement and 20 years since the ceasefires, it is certainly an appropriate time to reflect on the continuing impact of the conflict's legacy on victims and survivors. Throughout the Troubles, young people suffered disproportionately in terms of the number killed and generations of young people who have been left to cope with carrying a significant burden due to exposure to conflict-related violence.
We will be undertaking a number of research projects, including one in partnership with the University of Ulster. The Better Future project will include an examination of the relationship between the impact of the conflict's legacy on the social, economic, and political life of Northern Ireland and the extent to which these factors affect children and young people's mental health and social well-being.
Let me turn to dealing with the past. A question I have often been asked since taking up the post as a single commissioner is how I tread a course through the diversity of opinion and the widely varying while promoting the interest of all victims and survivors. The question has certainly not become any easier to answer 18 months into my post. Without doubt, one of the most challenging areas for the commission, if not the most challenging, is dealing with the past. As members will know, dealing with the legacy of the past and issues relating to truth, justice and acknowledgement remain contentious and divisive across society in Northern Ireland.
From a victims' and survivors' perspective, it is important to remember first of all that victims are not a homogenous group and do not speak with one voice. Different people want different outcomes. The forum is a very good example of where people from a range of backgrounds have come together to share and understand one another's perspectives. While they might not agree with one another, they have come to respect that different people have different world-views.
Despite the disagreement among local political parties relating to the proposed agreement document that emerged from the Haass process, it does provide an important message. The document states:
We can […] all agree that the past has consequences for individual victims and society that continue through the present. We must meet the challenges posed by the past and work to ensure that they do not overwhelm the present or undermine the future.
In the past year, the forum's dealing-with-the-past working group has been engaged in important work that is facing head-on the challenges posed by our contentious past. While there remain understandable differences of opinion among forum members on difficult issues, including the definition, which I note was an issue that the main political parties could not resolve during the Haass process, there is strong collective resolve among all forum members to ensure that “the past must never happen again”.
A key theme contained in the Haass document that I certainly welcome is the need to address effectively and comprehensively the needs of victims and survivors. In particular, I welcome the premium placed on the learning and inspiration that can be derived from the lived experience of victims and survivors. I consider myself very privileged to hear and learn from the often-pained but inspirational voices of many victims and survivors that I have met as commissioner. I was heartened by the commitment to ensuring that victims and survivors have timely access to high-quality mental health services that focus on the often-complex psychological needs of individuals and families affected by the Troubles.
As the main political parties continue to deliberate over the content of the Haass proposals, the commission will be hosting a conference on dealing with the past later this month in Belfast. Working in partnership with Queens University, the University of Ulster and Healing Through Remembering, the conference will provide a timely opportunity for all stakeholders, including the wider victims and survivors community, to discuss a number of the unresolved issues linked to the past and for the commission to hear the views of all victims and survivors.
As commissioner, one of my primary statutory duties is to review continually the adequacy and effectiveness of the treatments and services accessed by victims and survivors. I regularly make the point that given the unimaginable emotional turmoil experienced by many victims and survivors before and after the Agreement, they deserve to have access to gold-standard treatment and care from whatever sector or wherever it is provided.
With the inception of the Victims and Survivors Service in 2012, the commission continues to review the operation of the organisation to ensure it delivers a service and care of a high standard to victims and survivors. In exercising my statutory duty and owing to a series of critical issues, I have recently been invited by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to commission an independent assessment of the Victims and Survivors Service. The assessment, which will be completed in the next two weeks, will focus on the service's corporate governance and management, the individual needs review process, the broader policy framework and wider issues relating to service delivery. Once again, the forum has performed an important role in representing the breadth of experience of victims accessing the service.
Important work in which the commission is currently engaged relates to an independent study to examine the viability of implementing a pension for victims and survivors who were severely injured during the Troubles. The rationale for such a pension is aimed at improving the position of those individuals who not only lost the ability to work following their injury but who also lost the ability to accrue any occupational rights as a result of their having lost their career prospects to chronic ill health.
The final report will be presented to the commission in March 2014 and, based on the findings and recommendations, I will then provide advice for Office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister on the next steps in progressing this important project on behalf of the severely injured. In the year ahead my focus will be on collaborating with the forum, engaging with the wider community of victims and commissioning research to provide an evidence base to inform my advice to the Government, with advice on how to deal with the past, build for the future and provide services from a victims' perspective.
I respectfully request this committee to encourage others in considering urgently the Haass proposals and, specifically, those proposals for dealing with the past and victims. Prior to the Haass discussions and throughout the process, politicians committed sincerely to supporting victims and making their needs paramount in the discussions. I ask committee members to urge their colleagues not to lose their momentum or forget the victims.
I thank the committee for listening to my presentation. My colleague, Mr. John Beggs, and I are happy to take members' questions.