REPUBLICAN AND loyalist paramilitaries must state that their violence "must never happen again" in order to help address the bloody legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict, according to the Eames-Bradley consultative group on the past.
Former Church of Ireland primate Lord (Robin) Eames and former vice-chairman of the Policing Board Denis Bradley, whose group is charged with recommending how the North's past can be confronted, said it was unclear whether republicans were aware of the depth of hurt that the IRA and other similar paramilitary bodies had inflicted on unionists.
Their group later this year is scheduled to issue recommendations to help victims and survivors of the Troubles emerge from the shadow of the past.
Yesterday in Belfast they delivered a lengthy speech, speaking alternately, highlighting issues that must be tackled to deal with the past.
They said many of the unionists they had spoken to during months of meeting victims' representatives talked of experiencing from republicans "at best raw sectarianism and at worst ethnic cleansing".
"Apologising to non-combatants (as the IRA has done) just isn't good enough," they said. "They have to say, 'it must never happen again'." Equally, they said the emergence of the IRA at the start of the Troubles "did not just happen - the conditions had to be there". Loyalists too who had killed Catholics simply because of their religion must also say, "it must never happen again".
William Frazer of the Protestant victims' group, Families Acting for Innocent Victims (Fair), was denied admission to yesterday's press conference while the republican Families for Justice group boycotted the event because they were not invited. Sinn Féin was invited but did not attend.
A spokesman for the consultative group said that victims' groups would be invited when the final report with recommendations was published.
Lord Eames and Mr Bradley in their speech, without specifying any particular group, said they would be "less than honest if we didn't say that in some cases we have witnessed victims and survivors themselves using their pain to continue division". They said one of the key themes they heard from unionists was that the Irish State "turned a blind eye" to republican violence, notwithstanding the counter-argument that IRA members were imprisoned and that Sinn Féin was restricted from the airwaves.
"People in the South may be surprised about the hurt and suspicions that remain within some unionist communities. We believe this is something that needs to be acknowledged," said Mr Bradley.
Lord Eames and Mr Bradley suggested that people would not be convicted for old crimes of the Troubles and that "long drawn out judicial processes" was not the way to deal with outstanding controversial killings.
"It is difficult for us not to listen to those experts who are telling us that the reality is that as each day passes securing justice becomes less and less likely. In many historic cases witnesses have died, exhibits are no longer credible or have disintegrated over time. This is the reality of the situation."
Sources have said that the group was astonished by the level of informers and agents run by the police, British army and the British intelligence services.
Lord Eames and Mr Bradley said while some people wanted full disclosure about informers, such information had its repercussions and no community would be left unscathed.
"Would the republican community like to have to tell an aging mother that her martyred son was actually an informer?"
They said Northern politicians "have a choice - they continue to act in [an] antagonistic way and use the past for selfish political aims and allow themselves to be guided only by the hurt on either side, or they can become statesmanlike".