MPs hear call to ‘knock heads together’ on Troubles’ legacy issues

The "unpicking" of the agreement to deal with Northern Ireland Troubles' legacy issues has led to a "severe dilution" of what was proposed, a member of the Victims and Survivors Forum has told a Westminster committee.

Emmett McConomy, whose brother Stephen (11) was killed in 1981 by a plastic bullet fired by a British soldier, was giving evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the UK government’s proposals to address the legacy of the Troubles.

"The public has been consulted, we've agreed to the Stormont House Agreement in a political sense, mechanisms were proposed and put in place but we've had stalling, delays and what appears now is the unpicking of the Stormont House Agreement for political reasons, national security reasons," he said.

The North's victims' commissioner, Judith Thompson, told the committee that victims and survivors are now faced with legislation "driven through Westminster that does little for them" and they had not seen any detail of the changes proposed or had an opportunity for further consultation.

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"We can't do to legacy what's been done to the victims' payment," said Mary Moreland, a member of the forum whose husband, a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, was killed by the IRA in 1988, in reference to the stalled payment scheme for victims of the Troubles.

“There can’t be legislation put in place to say this is happening and then at the last minute change it. It has to happen,” she said. “If that means knocking heads together, then knock heads together, and that has to come from Westminster.”

One of the pledges of the New Decade, New Approach deal, which restored the North’s Assembly in January, was a commitment to introduce legislation to implement the provisions on legacy issues outlined in the 2014 Stormont House Agreement within 100 days. Among its provisions was the creation of an independent Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) to investigate outstanding Troubles-related deaths.

Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis in March outlined a new approach to dealing with legacy issues which included "significant changes" that he said "will be needed to obtain a broad consensus for the implementation of any legislation". Under the new proposals, only cases where there is a "realistic prospect" of prosecution would be investigated, and all other cases would be closed permanently. This, he said, would end "the cycle of reinvestigations into the Troubles in Northern Ireland that has failed victims and veterans alike".

‘Vexatious claims’

Asked by North Antrim MP Ian Paisley about "vexatious claims against veterans", Ms Thompson said there were five cases involving six soldiers being prosecuted in Northern Ireland, and she did not anticipate a great change in that number.

“For those six families who will be relieved to hear, I’m sure, that their family member is no longer being investigated, there are hundreds of soldiers and police officers’ families who in this process will be told that they will not see the investigational truth,” she said.

Ms Thompson said that unlike Iraq and Afghanistan and other theatres of war, UK citizens in Northern Ireland had suffered harm under UK law, and prosecutions only happened “when you’ve had a police investigation and a public prosecution service decision that there is enough evidence to give a decent chance of conviction and it is in the public interest”.

In a letter to MPs later on Wednesday, Ms Thompson said the objective of legacy legislation could not be to “close down investigations which families from all backgrounds need in order to acknowledge harm and to build a better and more reconciled future.”