It is a great privilege for us to be invited to meet the committee to discuss the report. We would welcome a discussion on our recommendations. As an introduction, I will speak to the background from which the report was produced.
As the committee knows, we were appointed by the then Northern Ireland Secretary of State on 22 June 2007 and two main tasks were given to us. First, we were to consult across the community on how Northern Ireland's society could best approach the legacy of the events of the past 40 years. Second, we were asked to make recommendations, as appropriate, on any steps that might be taken to support Northern Ireland's society in building a shared future that is not overshadowed by the events of the past.
I emphasise two parts of these tasks, namely, building a shared future and not allowing the past's events to overshadow us. I will refer to these shortly, but if members keep these two phrases in their minds, they will see how our work's focus was set over the 18 months.
After 18 months of exhaustive and extensive consultations, we presented the report, which is before the committee and has been made public. I stress that our recommendations came from an extensive period of listening, questioning and debating with Northern Ireland's society.
I am glad the Chairman has already paid tribute to the group's members because neither Mr. Bradley nor I, together or individually, could have been responsible for the weight of this report were it not for the loyalty and hard work of all of our team's members. When we were asked to undertake this task, there is no doubt that few of us had any delusions as to what lay ahead. Further than that, we were unprepared for the emotional and strenuous effort required of us in grappling with the situation in those 18 months. Professionally, we had been heavily involved in the life of Northern Ireland. I speak for myself but I am sure Mr. Bradley would reflect on this also. To use the usual phrase, we felt we knew it all, we felt we had seen it all and we felt we had experienced it all but nothing prepared us for what lay ahead of us in those 18 months. As we began the work, many told us that we faced an impossible task. They told us there were no answers, that the divisions were too deep and that the raw feelings throughout the North were such that because of the legacy of the past and the emotional build-up it was too soon to undertake this job. People cited the cases of Spain, Rwanda and South Africa. From a professional point of view, many said that the British Government was asking us to do this task too soon. Others believed it was too soon to attempt the task and too soon to make any recommendations. Some have suggested that we leave the past to take care of the past and leave well enough alone. Some had high hopes that we would find ways of dealing with the past that would produce the proverbial line in the sand. There were those who questioned whether a group set up by a British Secretary of State had the necessary credibility to produce recommendations that had integrity for a divided society. Underlying the so-called advice that was shared with us by many "wise people" — who will always come out of the woodwork when you start a task like this — the underlying emotion shared with us was that people realised we could not please everyone. We knew we could not and, as it has turned out, we now know for certain that we could not.
When we began our work we were overwhelmed by the number of groups, individuals and representatives who wanted to make contact with us. The staff were at times bewildered by the strength of the opinions and the volume of presentations made at the office. They ranged from victims and victims groups, political parties, churches, groups already achieving a great deal in society with their approach to remembrance and victims with deep emotional needs to paramilitaries, security services, Government agencies, retired security force personnel, academics and private individuals. We engaged in one of the most extensive consultation periods imaginable in the North. We held public meetings, received written submissions and travelled throughout Northern Ireland, the Republic and Great Britain. Our report is consultation-based, a term to which I will return.
None of the recommendations in our report was plucked out of the air. They came from the experience of meeting people, listening to their suggestions, listening to their emotional involvement and listening to their pain. The views expressed to us were varied, contradictory at times even from the same person or group, but always expressed with immense passion. We listened to the agonies of human tragedy, we watched the tears, we recognised in the emotional presentation of some that there were no answers that could be given by us and we had to say to some that we could not make a recommendation based on what the person had said because the answer to the recommendation, in human terms, is "No". There was no answer and it is not easy to say this to someone who is suffering.
We were moved by the stories of individual victims and heartache of those who continue to carry, on their minds, hearts and bodies, the scars of the conflict. We heard calls for justice. This was the most common call we received but when one asked the person or group to define what is meant by justice we began to see the tremendous depth of emotion and contradiction in their view. We heard calls for justice that typified the community today when we analysed what people meant by it. Some wanted retribution for the loss of a loved one or a successful prosecution. One man said to us that he wanted to sit in a court and look into the back of the head of the man who did it. Some wanted not just a successful prosecution but to know what had happened to their loved ones. Some interpreted justice in terms that they recognise had no answer. We met with the entire ambit of human feelings and we all felt emotionally drained by the experience.
We studied how other countries dealt with a post-conflict situation, a matter to which we will return in our discussion. The report is a consequence of all that experience and it is by no means the most perfect report written in a post-conflict situation. We have no doubt about that. I submit that the report represents an honest attempt to ask the questions we believe that society in the North needs to have asked of it at this time, to produce a blueprint so that society could respond to those questions and to challenge politicians, victim groups, churches, the education field, the media and the ordinary people of the North to listen to the questions.
The past in Northern Ireland will not go away. The ghosts of the past that so many of us have lived through will continue to haunt this generation and the next, feeding on sectarian attitudes, unless some way is found to move forward. We must move forward with real respect for the sacrifice and trauma of the past. If there was one consensus that emerged from every interview, every meeting and every submission it was this: it must never happen again. That came from those who knew that they could never face it again. I speak emotionally about this because I have been to too many homes broken by the Troubles and I have stood at too many graves not to feel emotional about this. There are those who could never physically or humanly go through this again. They could not do it. There are those who never want to see their children or their children's children going through it.
There are the lessons to be learned. Whenever I go abroad and people speak to me about my involvement in this and in the past, the most common question is what are the lessons we can learn from the past. It will take a very wise person to answer that question because it is emotionally so confusing that it is very hard at times to really draw out the true lessons of Northern Ireland.
On behalf of Mr. Bradley and myself I suggest that what we have in this report will not please everyone. We were not established to do so. It is not a case of providing answers to Northern Ireland which will make sums much smaller than other sums. We were not asked to produce a cheap way of meeting the needs. It is also true to state that in this report we have the words of a committee and panel that came from every section of Northern society. It was a wonderful experience to work with them, because as one of them said to us, they had travelled a lifetime in 18 months. I am proud of this report. I do not state it is perfect. I never said it would be perfect. However, I am proud of the effort that went into it.
While I am sure committee members do not want me to dwell any longer in the introduction or any specific part of it, there was a great deal of controversy over one of the recommendations. We will probably speak about this later but I want to make this plea to whoever is listening, "Please do not throw the baby out with the bath water".
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland stated he was not prepared to put one of the recommendations forward to the Government. I must accept the reality of this but I want to move on to the other recommendations in this report because they have been enhanced by the advice we took and the experiences we had. I humbly submit that they are worth considering. I thank the Chairman for his courtesy.
