Examination of Witnesses (Questions 510
- 519)
WEDNESDAY 28 FEBRUARY 2001
MR TONY
HOLLAND, SIR
JOHN PRINGLE,
MR JOHN
COUSINS, MR
ROY MAGEE,
MR PETER
OSBORNE AND
MR BILLY
MARTIN
Chairman
510. Mr Holland, you and your colleagues are
very welcome. I am sure in a moment you will introduce them to
us. I think we have had forewarning of several but not necessarily
the total gathering. You will know from previous occasions on
which we have had the pleasure of taking evidence from you that
we endeavour to make our questions follow a logical order. You
are entirely at liberty to gloss whatever answers you wish should
you wish to do so, either orally now or in writing afterwards,
and equally we reserve the right to come back with supplementary
questions once we have read the transcript. I think I must give
you the task of orchestrating who in your serried ranks is going
to answer questions. Because of the coincidence of the exhibition
in the Upper Waiting Hall on Northern Ireland, what is described
as The Field of Vision, to which the Prime Minister came shortly
after half past three, that has made the start of this session
somewhat later than it would otherwise have been. That is not
remotely your responsibility; it is the coincidence of the exhibition.
I hope not every member of the Commission will find it necessary
to answer every question, I think that might prolong matters a
bit. We did receive yesterday evening, and one or two of us were
actually in Ireland yesterday so we received it even later than
the rest of the Committee, the comments you have made on the evidence
given by some of the other witnesses to us. Because of the time
at which it arrived, and the quite considerable amount of cross
referencing one had to do in order, not to make sense of it but
to make it as valuable as it is clearly intended to be, I think
we would regard it as a further written submission rather than
a significant part of today's agenda[1].
I realise you or your colleagues may want to make reference to
it at some point in the proceedings in answer to particular questions
we might ask. We are not going to dwell on it significantly but
we are grateful to you for having gone to that trouble. So far
as we are concerned, this is simply an opportunity to revisit
something with you, having obviously taken a lot of evidence from
other people and in the light of experience during the season.
Is there anything in addition to introducing your colleagues you
would like just to say yourself before we start?
(Mr Holland) Only briefly, first of all,
to thank you, Chairman, for allowing us to come here today. I
thought it right actually to bring the Commission with me because,
after all, we are a body of people as opposed to me individually
or even two or three of us individually and we are all here except
for Peter Quinn who, unfortunately, is ill. Starting at the end
I will introduce Roy Magee, John Cousins, Sir John Pringle, and
on my right Peter Osborne and Billy Martin. I want to identify
to you the fact that all of us were new on this Commission with
the exception of Billy Martin who spent, I think, two years on
the previous Commission, and Roy Magee who was also on the previous
Commission but not for such a long time as that. I thought it
desirable that we should all come because it is an important matter
for Northern Ireland. As a Commission, we have had the benefit
now of working together for just over 12 months. I think all of
us value the parading culture of Northern Ireland and, indeed,
hope that in some small way we can gradually enhance it. The problem,
of course, is that it is a long haul, no-one can pretend that
what we are doing is going to happen overnight or there is any
quick fix for what is in some areas a particularly serious problem.
I think all the Commission take the view that we have a job to
do and we regard it as a very serious job and one which requires
an enormous commitment, not so much on my part but on the part
of those who are actually here today and who live in Northern
Ireland, the different parts of it. As I say, I am sorry that
Peter Quinn, who is the absent member, is absent because of illness.
Rather than prolong my opening remarks I thought it might be more
helpful, particularly as we have sent in a great deal of written
information to the Committee, for me to take questions from whatever
source. I think the intention was that I would answer most of
them but, in fact, there may well be points that my colleagues
would like to add to or, indeed, specifically answer or, indeed,
it may be that Members of the Committee would particularly rather
have a question directed towards a member of the Commission other
than myself. We do not intend, as far as we are concerned, that
we should each give an answer to every question.
511. That sounds an admirable and constructively
flexible position. Since the Commission last appeared before the
Committee a complete marching season has elapsed. This was obviously
the first marching season for most of the Commission other than
those whom you mentioned. What assessment have you made, to ask
a thoroughly pointed question, of your own handling of it? What
lesson has the Commission drawn from the experience?
(Mr Holland) It is very difficult for me or anybody
else on the Commission to give an objective answer to that. I
think that for the first few weeks, because we had to hit the
ground running, so to speak, we found it quite difficult to absorb
so much information and there were also staff changes that we
had to contend with within the Commission itself. We had staff
changes in fact throughout that period of March to September.
My own view was that it had been in one sense more complex than
I had personally realised but in another that we had actually
made significant progress amongst ourselves in understanding some
of those complex issues. I was told at the end that the season
had been, from what I was told by local observers, far less troublesome
than had been anticipated. I cannot really comment on that because
I have no experience of what was anticipated or knowledge of what
was anticipated. I thought that we had a reasonably successful
time. There were some areas where, perhaps, we might have done
things a little bit differently, you cannot be sure because obviously,
particularly at the height of the season, we received something
like 120 or 130 applications in the course of two or three days
which all had to be processed and considered and that does take
an awful lot of commitment. In fact, we sat for an entire working
week, crossed over through a weekend on two occasions around August
and the middle of July. After the end of the season, to go on
to the second part of your question, we then decided to sit back
and review where we had gone in relation to Portadown and whether
we could anticipate proactively some movement there by putting
forward initiatives of our own. As you know, Sir, we cannot actually
mediate but we can promote mediation. We had two whole days and
saw a great number of people involved in Portadown on that and
took certain steps thereafter following those meetings. We have
also had a further series of two day meetings since then.
512. I think, given the nature of the question,
that is very fair response. To what extent does the non-engagement
policy of certain Loyal Orders act to reduce the effectiveness
of the Commission?
(Mr Holland) I think it reduces the effectiveness,
perhaps, more with some than with others. Plainly, if you do not
talk to the body that is actually making these decisions it means
that the knowledge that that body acquires of the culture, or
whatever lies behind that particular parade will never be as full
as it would otherwise be. Whereas one can, as I have done, make
informal perambulations around the Province from time to time
to see and get a feel for something, this is not the same as where
you engage with the people directly in the Commission's offices.
It is like tying one of our hands behind our backs when we make
decisions. Obviously there are some members of the Commission
to whom the knowledge they would gain would be less than in my
case. If you do not engage or do not have communication with the
Commission it does mean that the fullness of knowledge that is
otherwise obtained is not there.
513. I have not been back over the evidence
which was given to us in one of the sessions we had by the Loyal
Orders. However, my recollection is in response to questions to
us on the same subject they did allude to one letter they had
written where they felt they had not received your response. I
may be mis-remembering, it may go back before the life of your
own Commission.
(Mr Holland) Yes, I think you are right. It was a
question that was asked of me last time and I could not give an
answer and I had to write in with an answer. It had arisen in
relation to the consultation about the guidelines, the procedure
and the rules of conduct. There was obviously a misunderstanding
of the consultation process, as my letter that I sent afterwards
explained, on the part of the previous Commission, because in
the end the consultation that was intended did not proceed. The
view taken by that particular Loyal Order was that they had been
slighted by that failure. It was however because there was a change
of process rather than that particular Order being sidestepped
or sidelined.
514. That had been made clear to them at some
stage?
(Mr Holland) I believe it was. It happened before
I took over, it was quite some time ago.
515. We ourselves have had the experience that
not everyone has been anxious to give us evidence. Has there been
a basis on which you have been able to encourage people who have
not been giving evidence to you, not so much in your case giving
evidence, but being in communion with you to do so?
(Mr Holland) I have had a lot of meetings with people
I would not want to identify formally in an endeavour to get changes
made. I am not entirely sure that still will not happen. That
has been an on-going process over the past few months, more over
the last four or five months than during the parading season,
when there was not time to do that. I am not entirely pessimistic
that the solutions that we hope for stemming from an engagement
will be coming in the near future. One obviously becomes more
optimistic when events justify it subsequently. I think there
is hope there.
Mr Hunter
516. Mr Holland, can I first put to you the
question I put to the Northern Ireland Office a few weeks ago,
which they could not answer, perhaps you will be able to, it runs
like this: why when approval for a parade of bands is being sought
does the Commission require on the relevant form the names and
addresses of the organisers of each band that wishes to take part?
(Mr Holland) That is a police requirement rather than
our requirement.
517. It is, perhaps, relevant to point out that
when the police were asked this they said they knew anyhow.
(Mr Holland) It was a police requirement on that form,
which was redesigned last year.
518. You may guess where I am leading. Can you
then explain why the names and addresses of Protestant band organisers
intending to take part in the bands parade in Maghera last summer
were given to Sinn Fein?
(Mr Holland) That was a dreadful mistake on the part
of the Commission, for which I took full responsibility at the
time and apologised. The reason it happened, if you want to get
into the detail, was that at that particular time, I think it
was the week where we have something like 120 applications, the
fax machine that was used to fax that information was inadvertently
fed with that particular page. When the person who did it realised
exactly what had happened, they rang up the person to whom it
was sent and we were assured it would be destroyed. It was the
Commission's fault, nobody else's; it was a mistake on our part.
519. Which, arguably, put people at risk?
(Mr Holland) Possibly.
1 See Appendix 22, p 301. Back
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