NORTHERN IRELAND is not yet ready for a legacy commission to hear from the victims and families of victims of the Troubles and there are already enough bodies looking at the past, the House of Commons’ Northern Ireland Committee will say in a report today.
The legacy commission proposal, along with a £12,000 “recognition” payment to all victims, was one of the central recommendations of the inquiry, led by the former Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, Lord Robin Eames, and Denis Bradley.
However, the MPs cast doubt on the proposal, saying they believed that Northern Ireland “had not yet reached a consensus on how to move on from its recent past”, though they accepted that the time for such a body may come.
“It is not clear that Northern Ireland needs a legacy commission when bodies such as the Victims and Survivors Commission and the Historical Enquiries Team are already dealing in different ways with aspects of the legacy of the Troubles,” the MPs’ report says.
A new fund should be created to deal with the physical and mental health needs of victims of the Troubles “given the continuing hardship suffered by many of those affected”, but in a way that will “win cross-community support”.
The £12,000 “recognition” payment proposal provoked strong protests in January when it was learned that the payments could also go to IRA members’ families.
MPs have also raised some questions about the Eames/Bradley recommendation that the commission should last for five years and be chaired by an international figure alongside two others.
“A commission would need at least five years to do its work, but should be time-limited to prevent its running indefinitely,” the MPs’ report says, but the body should be “chaired, or co-chaired, by figures from Northern Ireland rather than by a foreign figurehead”.
The Stormont Assembly, and not Westminster, should be responsible for funding it and for deciding on its powers, the Northern Ireland Commons committee, chaired by Conservative MP Sir Patrick Cormack, found.
If and when a legacy commission is established, the Northern Ireland Committee said it believed that “clarification is required on what role the Irish Government would play in setting up such a commission, and in particular on what financial contribution it would be expected to make”.
The Westminster committee includes Tory and Labour MPs, Ulster Unionist Lady Sylvia Hermon, Dr Alasdair McDonnell of the SDLP, and DUP MPs Iris Robinson and David Simpson.