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4.15 pm
Because the victims were murdered one by one and were not part of a single outrage--as had happened in other parts of the Province--they were simply ignored. An organisation was formed only recently in south Armagh to redress the balance. Those victims were ignored because, for many years, it was not fashionable or politically expedient for the Government to acknowledge former reservists, ex-members of the UDR or serving soldiers who had been killed.
In pursuit of the peace process and under the terms of the Belfast agreement, however, this Government found themselves committed to spending large amounts of public money on the welfare and rehabilitation of former murderers and criminals. That provoked outrage among victims' families and became a very big issue. It became a moral issue: people contrasted the extraordinarily generous treatment afforded to ex-prisoners, many of whom had committed murders, with the treatment afforded to their victims. The victims, who had suffered for so many years in silence because successive Governments did little for their welfare, were outraged at the insensitivity of this Government. That is what motivates the Government, not any sense of public good.
As in so many other matters, the Government have seized upon an overtly and nakedly emotional, even sentimental, issue: the bodies of "The Disappeared" and the natural grief of their families, who want to give their loved ones a Christian burial. In an attempt to raise public indignation about the victims and to redress the balance regarding their treatment of the prisoners, the Government have converted this into a noble issue involving moral rescue work on behalf of the relatives of "The Disappeared". What is the price of that work? It is not very different from the price that was paid for decommissioning--the terrorists price.
The Chairman:
Order. I have been generous to the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney). I appreciate that he was not present for Second Reading, but I am beginning to feel that he is making the speech that he might have made on that occasion. I cannot allow that as we are considering whether clause 1 should stand part of the Bill.
Mr. McCartney:
I accept your remarks, Sir Alan, which are entirely justified. I apologise if I have strained your patience.
It does not lie in the mouth of the Minister to make accusations against representatives from Northern Ireland who not only feel for the victims but, out of long experience and as indigenous people of Northern Ireland, have the capacity to share their grief.
Mr. Ingram:
This has been a useful debate. If some of those Members who have spoken today had turned up for Second Reading, we might have extended that debate.
Mr. Thompson:
If the Government had recognised the ability of Northern Ireland Members to travel to Westminster at short notice, the Minister might have been justified in making that remark.
Mr. Ingram:
I do not know whether that is a demand for home rule for Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland Members seem to think that they are no longer part of the United Kingdom. Every other Member of Parliament had the same notice of the debate, and many of them were here to vote. No complication was put in the hon. Gentleman's way. I appreciate that Northern Ireland Members may have had something more important and pressing to do, but that is a matter for them.
I shall deal with what the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis) said because he sought to put words into my mouth. I did not say that the people of Northern Ireland do not care; I think they care, but they have been looking for leadership, which they have not had. Only recently have we been able to begin to address some of these issues. I recognise that the Ulster Unionist party made suggestions about how to deal with one aspect of the victims issue. Those suggestions were not comprehensive and did not deal with the whole range of victims, as the hon. Gentleman has just done, but they were none the less helpful. Those suggestions fed into the Good Friday agreement, from which emerged Sir Kenneth Bloomfield's review on victims.
I say to Members who have spoken in this debate that they all had an opportunity to contribute to Sir Kenneth Bloomfield's consultation process, but not one of them did so. No party made its views known to Sir Kenneth. I am not saying that they did not care, but they had an opportunity to try to condition the Government's thinking and they did not avail themselves of it.
The hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone seemed to say, as others do, that this issue is the Government's responsibility and that "The Disappeared" are the responsibility of those who carried out those dreadful murders. The terrorists undoubtedly have a function to perform: they must give information, and we hope that we can bring them to justice. I make no bones about that. The Bill clearly limits our capacity to bring them to justice, but we want to do so, and I am sure that the families of the victims would welcome that, as would society and those involved in the judicial process.
I say to the hon. Gentleman, who said that this issue is the Government's responsibility, that all politicians have a responsibility to try to find answers. If the Government are not getting it right, hon. Members should tell us where we are going wrong.
Mr. Maginnis:
You have never listened, and you are not listening now.
The Chairman:
Order. We do not want sedentary interventions, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows.
Mr. Ingram:
We are dealing with the specific issueof victims, not the panoply of Government policy. Our document was put out for consultation, but there was
I make that point because when the Government are accused of doing nothing, hon. Members should look to themselves and consider what they have been doing over the years. Wearing one's heart on one's sleeve is no solution to the trauma of deeply troubled people. I have to deal with those people.
I am not from Northern Ireland, but that does not mean that I do not care or that any of those who deal with the issue do not care if they do not come from Northern Ireland. Having dealt with individual cases, we shall carry the hurt for a long time afterwards. Many of my officials must have counselling because they are dealing with cases to an even greater extent than I am. Hon. Members should not diminish what we seek to achieve in the Bill and make out that only the Government and those who carried out the violent acts have a responsibility. We all have a responsibility, not only on this issue, but on wider issues.
Mr. Robert McCartney:
On the issue of making contributions and listening, I wrote to the Secretary of State on behalf of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives. Four weeks later, at a meeting with the Secretary of State that was organised by FAIR, she still had not read the letter that had been sent to her and her secretary.
Mr. Ingram:
I do not know whether that is a fact.
Mr. Ingram:
The hon. and learned Gentleman may tell me that it is a fact, but it does not relate to the point that I was making about the Bloomfield report. Why did he not respond to that heavyweight document, which endeavoured to deal with a complex issue that has remained forgotten for 30 years? Many people in Northern Ireland fall into the category of victims, and have come forward for help and now work in the various groups, but there are many others--not just those who have seen death in their families, but those who have had to put up with long-term injury in their families--who do not come forward, either as individuals who have suffered or as relatives of those who have been injured. That conveys the enormity of the broader reach of the issue with which we are having to deal.
This measure deals with just one small category of people. In the arguments deployed in this debate, I have yet to hear a suggestion as to how we should deal with the issue, other than to blame someone else. That does not provide an answer.
Rev. Martin Smyth:
I know that the Minister would not want to mislead the Committee or be inaccurate. He said that none of us had responded to Sir Kenneth Bloomfield. If he consults Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, he will discover that at least one did. I speak for myself in that instance. Were not my hon. Friends the Members for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) and for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis) appointed to deal withthe matter, and did not they seek to do so? I want to put
Mr. Ingram:
If the hon. Gentleman made a submission to Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, I shall go back and look at it. I apologise if I inadvertently said that he did not, although it is interesting that no one else is standing up to say that they did.
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