Examination of Witnesses (Questions 277-299)
WEDNESDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2001
MISS MARGARET
O'MARA, MR
STEPHEN LEACH,
MR WILLIAM
STEVENSON AND
MR FRANK
BRANNIGAN
Chairman
277. I am sorry that we should have kept you
waiting for a couple of minutes; that is entirely the fault of
the Chairman, who was a moment or two late in arriving himself
for the preliminaries of the meeting. Miss O'Mara, we are delighted
to welcome you all. I think it is the third time, the third departmental
context in which I have met you, and Mr Leach, as he well knows,
is very familiar to me, from a past activity. We will operate
on exactly the same basis as we usually do, but we will endeavour
to make the questions follow a logical order. We are, I fear,
going to be interrupted by a division, so there will be a short
pause, but we can do nothing about that. You should feel entirely
free to gloss any answer you give, either orally here, or in writing
hereafter, if you feel that your answer, which I am sure will
be extremely good, still needs improvement; and, equally, we will
feel free to ask supplementary questions in writing after the
event if, on reading the transcript, such questions occur to us.
Now, in addition to introducing your colleagues to us, is there
anything you would like to say, in advance of our asking questions?
(Miss O'Mara) Yes, I would like to, if I may. May
I introduce my team, first of all. I am Margaret O'Mara, the Associate
Director of Policing and Security in the Northern Ireland Office.
The colleague on my left is Stephen Leach, as you have mentioned,
Chairman, he is the Director of Criminal Justice in the NIO. Billy
Stevenson, to his left, is the Head of our Victims Liaison Unit;
and Frank Brannigan, on my right, is the Acting Chief Executive
of the Compensation Agency. I thought it might be helpful to the
Committee if I spoke briefly, at the outset, from an NIO perspective,
about the issue into which you are inquiring, not least because
events have moved on since we submitted our memorandum to you
in November. At that time, our concern focused on the effects
of the so-called loyalist feud between members of the Ulster Defence
Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force; those effects were
being felt most deeply in the Shankill Road, Tigers Bay/Mount
Vernon areas of Belfast, and at the time of our memorandum had
resulted in almost 300 requests for relocation, together with
a further seven in the Newtownabbey area. Fortunately, that feud
seemed to be resolved around Christmas, but since then there has
been a spate of apparently sectarian attacks, characterised, as
you will well know, by the throwing of pipe-bombs; they have focused
on Larne, Coleraine and North Belfast, although other areas have
also been affected, and they, too, have resulted in requests for
rehousing. The Government deplores this paramilitary activity
and is most anxious to see it brought to a swift end; however,
it does not have a single root, and so it is particularly hard
to tackle. Some attacks seem purely criminal in motivation, as
members of paramilitary organisations try to line their own pockets,
through burglary and robbery; others appear to be personal, reflecting
marital disputes or individual rivalries. Some attacks seem to
be undertaken not for personal gain but to bolster the finances
of the organisation concerned. Others are undertaken by paramilitary
organisations to keep the community in fear and to bypass the
normal law enforcement channels. The attacks which took place
in the Shankill in the autumn reflected dissension among the different
loyalist paramilitary organisations, and the most recent attacks
seem to have been undertaken by loyalists for sectarian reasons.
And just as the causes of paramilitary intimidation are complex,
so there can be no single solution to the problem as we see it.
Criminal activity, whatever its source, will be tackled in the
normal way. To the extent that we are seeing the emergence of
organised crime, it comes under the umbrella of the new Organised
Crime Task Force, chaired by our Minister of State in the NIO;
this has brought together the key agencies involved in dealing
with the problem in Northern Ireland, specifically to aid the
healthy transition of the Province to a responsible, civic society.
Community restorative justice schemes have been seen by those
who operate them as a way of enforcing justice in local communities,
but there are real concerns they could, at times, legitimise unacceptable
behaviour. The Criminal Justice Review saw a continuing role for
community-based restorative justice schemes, but was aware that
the dangers of coercion and threat, real or implied, were ever-present
concerns. And so, therefore, it recommended important safeguards,
including that schemes should receive referrals from a statutory
criminal justice agency, rather than from within the community,
that they should be accredited by and subject to standards laid
down by Government, that they should be subject to independent
inspection and that they should have no role in determining guilt
or innocence. The Review did not endorse schemes which purport
to deal with criminal activity but which operate outside the criminal
justice system and without links to it. However, Ministers believe
the best way of countering these paramilitary attacks and bringing
normality closer is to bolster the confidence of the whole community
in the law enforcement agencies, and that is why the Government
attaches such importance to all-party representation on the new
Policing Board, to which the police, in future, will be accountable.
Finally, the police are seeking to root out sectarian attacks
by increased patrolling in the areas of highest activity; in North
Belfast, Larne and Coleraine, they have brought in the Army in
support, although we all hope that will not be necessary for long.
In Coleraine, the police have announced an eight-point plan, which
includes stepping up the stop and search of individuals in vehicles,
carrying out searches of property, and seeking to obtain greater
forensic analysis of items recovered at crime scenes, and also
they are increasing the extent of their covert operations. And
on top of that, they are working closely with the local media
to keep them abreast of developments, and are encouraging community
groups to come together to find a solution. That, clearly, is
the key; the greater the co-operation the community can give the
police, in alerting them to incipient problems and helping them
track down offenders, in providing the witness statements which
enable the attackers to be brought to book, the faster the evil
will be eradicated. Intimidation, sadly, if understandably, does
lead individuals to seek to move elsewhere; the NIO's role in
helping them do so is limited. The provision of housing elsewhere
is handled by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, in the case
of owner-occupiers, under the Scheme for the Purchase of Evacuated
Dwellings, and that is the responsibility of the devolved administration.
Where we do have a role is in the provision of compensation to
those intimidated out of their homes by paramilitary activity;
where they are eligible to claim compensation, under one or both
of the statutory schemes, the Compensation Agency administers,
and our memorandum provided details of that. Thank you very much.
278. Thank you very much indeed. I hope I said
that you were most welcome, and you are the more welcome for that
extra expansion of the memorandum. It may well be that colleagues
will want to raise questions of a supplementary nature, arising
out of what you have just said; and, indeed, since one or two
of our number have got to leave early, I will verify whether anybody
who is in that condition has got questions they specifically want
to ask on what you have just said before they have to leave. I
do not see any sign of anybody wishing to bring something forward.
It may well be the case, however, because it was a substantial
incremental statement to what you had provided us with in November,
that, on reflection, we may have questions which we will need
to follow up hereafter. Let me start, however, and I am now going
back to the memorandum, which, of course, was the basis which
we had, prior to today, that includes figures for the number of
cases of alleged intimidation reported to the police. Do you think
that this represents a realistic guide to the level of intimidation,
obviously, Province-wide, or is there likely to be a degree of
under-reporting?
(Miss O'Mara) I am sure that there is a degree of
under-reporting. I believe that you interviewed, you had before
you, Assistant Chief Constable McQuillan, from the RUC, who made
this very point. To the extent that we are talking about intimidation,
it is quite likely, I would think, that individuals, by very virtue
of the fact that they are being intimidated, will not want to
report what has been going on. Obviously, to some extent, it depends
on what has happened; if it is a question of serious damage to
property, if it is a question of somebody being seriously injured,
taken to hospital, then those incidents will be reported and will
be picked up and the police will be aware of them, even if individuals
are not prepared to say who it was who attacked them, perhaps
will not even be prepared to admit to something that has gone
on, but the incident will be reported. However, there must be
a lot, I think, of other cases which simply never come to the
attention of the police, and so therefore are not picked up, so
there must be a substantial degree of those; but, unfortunately,
like the police, because we are reliant on the police's figures,
we could not really estimate how much we are not picking up as
a result.
279. But obviously, that was going to be my
next question. Recently, we did an inquiry into fuel smuggling,
and a number of us are familiar with the separate problem of drugs
smuggling, and the difficulty for the law enforcement agencies
to be able to calculate how much is actually getting through,
which they are not seizing. So we will have to rest on that statement,
and I do understand the circumstances. You may respond to me that
you have covered what I am about to ask in what you said at the
beginning, but to make absolutely certain that we have it on the
record, is the present statutory offence of intimidation broad
enough to catch all cases where people feel intimidated to the
extent of leaving their homes?
(Miss O'Mara) You may be picking up a comment that
we made in our own memorandum, talking about the fairly narrow
definition. I think we said that there simply because we were
conscious that, in giving figures for intimidation, we might well
not be picking them all up, which is not to say that there are
not other offences of which people might be guilty, one can think
of things like assault, criminal damage, public order offences.
Now, in the statistics they will be recorded under another heading,
they might be offences which the layman, quite properly, would
consider to be intimidation; so, to that extent, there is under-recording
of that kind, too. It does not mean to say they are not there
in the statistics, some things are not in the statistics at all,
there are other things that are in the statistics under another
heading.
280. That is helpful. Do you think that there
is a need to broaden the scope of the definition of intimidation,
in order to make sure that we were catching all the cases that
the man on the Clapham omnibus would regard as falling into that
category?
(Miss O'Mara) I am not sure to what extent that would
help. If we were saying that we wanted to broaden the definition
in order to be able to prosecute, then I do not think that that
is the situation in which we are, because the difficulty in prosecution
is not one of the nature of the offence, the problem there clearly
is in finding admissible evidence, because people are not prepared
to come forward, either as witnesses or even to claim that an
offence has been committed. If it is in terms of actually picking
up the problem and seeing the scale of the problem, what I would
be concerned about, I think, is that if we widened the definition
of intimidation to pick up some of these other things then they
would drop out of something else, and then when we were looking
at public order, or we were looking at assault, we would not be
picking up the right number of cases there; so I am not sure quite
how easy it would be. But that is a layman's point of view.
Chairman: I ought to have said, when I made
my introductory remarks, we are relying on you to orchestrate
any answers that others besides yourself would wish to give to
any of the questions we ask, but we will leave that, obviously,
in your hands.
Mr Hunter
281. We are trying to build up an accurate picture
of the extent of relocation both within and outside Northern Ireland,
and on page 2 of your memorandum you have given some figures,
I wonder if you can clarify whether these are individuals or households
numbers that you have listed there?
(Miss O'Mara) They are numbers for households.
282. Do you have the figures for individuals?
(Miss O'Mara) No, we do not. These are figures that
do not come directly from us, they are picked up largely through
the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and through others. I do
not know whether you have any more detail on that, Stephen.
(Mr Leach) I do not, actually.[1]
Most of the agencies operating in this field are the responsibility
of the devolved administration, and we tried to get a certain
amount of information in the memorandum, but we are not directly
responsible for that area.
283. I wonder then if you can help us, perhaps
you cannot, with the corresponding figures for people who relocate
within the Province?
(Mr Leach) I think the same point applies, that these
would be picked up by the devolved agencies; they might be picked
up on a basis of emergency need, that is that the particular factor
of intimidation might not be separately recorded. We do not have
that information and I am not sure that information exists. If
it would assist the Committee, we could ask the office of the
First Minister, the Deputy First Minister, whether some information
could be made available.
Chairman
284. I think that is something on which we can
certainly check. I am not quite sure whether you are volunteering
to follow up or whether we will.
(Mr Leach) I would be happy to, yes.
285. I think it is probably better if you follow
up, because, technically, we do not have a locus in asking questions
of them. Let me ask, however, one supplementary question to the
questions Mr Hunter asked, before I turn to Mr Clarke. I have
a present constituency case where it is not merely the heart of
the family that has gone into exile, this is for quite separate
reasons, but other members of the family as well, living in different
households. In the case of such an extended family, where basically
the entire family had to go abroad, because those who remained
would be regarded as a proxy for those who had been sent into
exile, would those show up in the statistics, or would they, in
fact, in a sense, be lost by concentration on the core family?
The reason I ask is because they are in a different household.
(Miss O'Mara) I would have thought, to the extent
that they are being reported, the way that these get picked up
is because people need rehousing, so if there was, effectively,
more than one household involved then it would get picked up in
that way; equally, the way they get picked up is under, as we
have mentioned, the SPED scheme, the Scheme for the Purchase of
Evacuated Dwellings. Again, if there was more than one house involved
there, they would get picked up that way. I think, to that extent,
one might expect more than one. But, obviously, if they were not
being picked up under either scheme, if they were not looking
for rehousing by the authorities and they were not looking for
compensation for their homes then I think it would be more difficult,
they probably would not be in the statistics at all.
(Mr Leach) I think that is right.
Mr Clarke
286. I wonder if I could move us off the statistics
and start to look at the practicalities of dealing with those
that, through intimidation, have to be relocated. In evidence
given to us in our sessions, we have found that there are a variety
of agencies which would seek to assist and co-ordinate relief
and assistance to those that are intimidated; is there any body,
to your knowledge, that has overall responsibility for co-ordinating
that relief and assistance?
(Mr Leach) Again, most of the statutory agencies which
would have responsibility in this field are the responsibility
of the devolved administration. We did make some enquiries, in
preparing the memorandum, and the memorandum does point to the
existence of some of that machinery, including, I think, the Displaced
Families Inter-Agency Group, which is chaired, I think, by one
of the health boards. So I think there is machinery there, although
we do not have comprehensive information on that. But I think
it is also worth saying that, at the operational level, when the
statutory agencies are confronted with an individual in distress,
possibly for this reason, they do co-operate quite effectively,
in my experience, because of the good relations that exist at
working level, and so there is interaction between Social Services,
Probation, Housing Executive, to resolve immediate operational
problems they are confronted with. So, I think, in that sense,
there is effective co-ordination, yes.
287. Can I just press, in terms of looking beyond
more than simply co-operation, because, obviously, we are not
talking about just the statutory agencies here, we are talking
about all of those that would get involved in assisting those
that are being terrorised. Is there any body that you know of
that has a responsibility for co-ordinating all of that relief,
not just co-operating but co-ordinating and having an overview
of what relief is available?
(Mr Leach) I think I would point again to the Displaced
Families Group, which I referred to; that was active, I believe,
in the aftermath of the Shankill feud, for example, in assisting
families, and I think that will be the central element in the
machinery.
288. Would the Northern Ireland Office have
a view as to whether or not such a key function as co-ordinating
assistance to those intimidated out of their homes should be left
to a voluntary body such as that, or do you think that there is
a need for a statutory duty for somebody to co-ordinate that assistance?
(Mr Leach) I think the body I referred to is not voluntary,
in the sense that is in the voluntary sector, it is an inter-agency
group, a co-ordinating body for public sector agencies and departments.
As to whether there should be a statutory co-ordinating function,
I am not sure that fixing arrangements in statute actually would
lead to arrangements that were sufficiently flexible to meet what
may well be a changing problem. As I think previous evidence has
indicated, there have been perhaps unexpected examples of major
relocation coming from the Shankill feud which might not have
been foreseen; and, therefore, my own personal preference would
be for active co-operation between departments, but not actually
on a statutory basis. But this is, of course, because virtually
all the agencies concerned are in the devolved field; it would
be a matter for the devolved administration to reach a judgement
on that.
289. To show my hand, in my next question; could
you give an estimate of the Government's annual spend on assisting
those who have been made homeless as a result of paramilitary
intimidation?
(Mr Leach) I am not sure that I could, actually. Those
costs would fall to the devolved agencies, in respect of relocations
within Northern Ireland, and to other Exchequer departments, but
also to local authorities, in respect of relocation to Great Britain.
And in both cases I think that the costs might well arise under
the head of meeting a sort of emergency need, and the particular
factor of paramilitary intimidation might well not be recorded
separately. So I am afraid that I do not have that information,
and I am not actually sure that it is obtainable, in the form
you propose.
290. You are saying that it would be the devolved
budgets of those organisations that are offering a service?
(Mr Leach) That is right, and they might not distinguish
between someone who was in immediate need of emergency restorative
payments because of unemployment, or some other family problem,
and paramilitary intimidation and other issues. Again, if it would
help the Committee, I could certainly enquire not only of the
devolved executive but also of Exchequer departments, to see if
they can provide any further information there.
Mr Clarke: It would be extremely helpful for
us to get a view as to what the overall picture is, so thank you
for that.
Chairman: In following up on Mr Clarke's question,
I think it would be of profound assistance, not so much to this
Committee, though it would be helpful to the Committee, as to
a wider public. I think the evidence given by the Assistant Chief
Constable in the context of another report, another inquiry, on
the Parades Commission, that Drumcree, in 1998, had cost £11
million, I think, did cause some people to catch their breath,
and some sense of the order of dimension would be important, I
think. That curious wailing, banshee noise, is, in fact, the harbinger
of a division.
The Committee suspended from 4.43 pm to 4.55
pm for a division in the House
Mr Pound
291. In the summer of 1988, I was a housing
officer for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and
we used to receive a great many applications, under the then Housing
(Homeless Persons) Act 1985, Part 3, Section 64, Housing the Homeless,
from people from Northern Ireland, who said that they were the
victims of intimidation and were seeking housing in the rest of
the United Kingdom. Some of us, reluctantly, had to go and visit
the North of Ireland, for extended, investigative journeys, and
we usually found, in fact, that it was a result of neo-vigilantes
and related to crime, rather than any form of sectarian or inter-group
feuding. There was no agency, at the time, which in any way co-ordinated
advice or assistance to these people when they were relocated,
as inevitably they were, in London. Does one exist now; is there
one that you are aware of?
(Mr Leach) An agency in London?
292. Anywhere in England, Scotland or Wales?
(Mr Leach) No, I am not aware that there is. There
is the Base 2 organisation, which is a NIACRO project, and of
which you had details, I think, and they would have links with
voluntary and perhaps statutory organisations and agencies in
England and Wales and Scotland. But I am not aware that there
is a co-ordinating body with which they deal.
293. Bearing in mind the element of dislocation,
both physical and emotional, which inevitably would attach itself
to such people, do you think it would help if there were such
an agency to co-ordinate advice and assistance? I am not asking
you for it to come from your budget.
(Mr Leach) I think the increasing effort of the system
actually should be to deal with the causes of the problem. If
an individual is under threat because of alleged or perceived
criminal activity, then I think there should be attempts to address
that through interventions in Northern Ireland, to obviate any
relocation; and that is, for example, the approach which the Probation
Board would take now.
294. That is an entirely proper answer, in the
realm of theory, but, just following up from Tony Clarke's question
earlier, there is also the practical element. I see that Mr Stevenson
represents the Victims Liaison Unit, is there any role for the
Victims Liaison Unit in such cases?
(Mr Stevenson) The remit of the Unit does not extend
beyond Northern Ireland, but we do have an interest and we will
speak to people, at Maranatha, for example, to get an idea of
what is going on. And I think it is fair to say that the responsibility
for this work lies with the local authorities and agencies within
GB, and that there is not an overarching strategy in place which
would provide a consistent form of support in that. Probably,
the services are quite different, varying across the country.
So I think probably there is not an agency; whether there should
be one, or not, is perhaps something that the agencies in GB would
have a view on, as to whether they think it would be helpful,
they are dealing with the issue probably daily.
Dr Palmer
295. In seeking to assist persons who are subject
to intimidation, what regard do public authorities have to their
duty, under section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, to promote
equality of opportunity, and is there not a degree of tension
between the statutory obligation, in that cause, and the wish
of many people to be relocated near to their own, near to others
of a similar viewpoint?
(Mr Leach) The section 75 duty is designed to ensure
that public authorities, as I understand it, in their policies
and actions, do not have a sort of unequal impact on different
sides of the community and a number of other categories, or, where
there is such an impact, to ensure that it is justified. In the
case of relocation, if there is an unequal impact, it is being
caused by the illegal acts of paramilitaries, and I think it would
be paradoxical if statutory agencies were constrained as a result
of section 75 from offering appropriate emergency assistance to
people who were in need. So I would not actually see a conflict,
no.
296. I think I agree with you, that it would
be paradoxical; my question is, basically, whether you feel that
Section 75 requires clarification, or if you feel comfortable
with it, even in this context?
(Mr Leach) I should preface by saying that most of
the actions that would be taken by statutory agencies would be
statutory agencies which are the responsibility of the devolved
administration, so I could not speak directly for them, but I
would not have thought, myself, that they would have a problem
there, because there is a clear case, and, for example, the Housing
Executive has a statutory authority to respond to people in housing
need, and therefore I believe they would be safe.
Mr Beggs
297. The recent loyalist feud led to substantial
rehousing and substantial public expenditure both on rehousing
and on repairing damage to vacated premises; presumably, people
were rehoused in more sympathetic areas. Is there not a risk that
public authorities, in effect, are assisting paramilitaries in
achieving their objectives of segregating the community?
(Mr Leach) I think, at one level, there is a tension
there. Helping those who have been intimidated out of their houses
could be seen as indirectly facilitating the purpose that the
paramilitaries were aiming at. Nonetheless, I think, for an agency
which has a statutory duty to respond to need, as the Housing
Executive does, and, sorry, I should say again that I am speaking,
in a sense, personally, because the Executive is the responsibility
of the devolved administration, and therefore we cannot speak
for it, I would have thought that they would regard their statutory
duty, subject to any other statutory provision that was made,
as the thing that should guide them in assisting people who were
intimidated out of their houses.
298. What steps can be taken to seek to improve
detection rates and prosecution rates in areas where paramilitary
intimidation is rife and residents are reluctant to co-operate
with the police? And are the reforms in the Police Service likely
to increase success in reducing intimidation?
(Miss O'Mara) In terms of what can be done, I think
we share what I suspect is an underlying concern of this Committee,
and it is certainly a concern of our Ministers, at the low level
of arrests and then convictions. I know the police are taking
this very seriously, they are doing various things; they have
installed closed-circuit television, in some areas; in some housing
areas, particularly, I think, in Larne, they have done that. They
have increased stop and search, hoping to detect people that way.
They have been undertaking a number of covert operations, to the
same end. But moving on to the second point that I think you were
making about the sort of structural reforms in the RUC, I think
certainly we do see that as a very fruitful area, in due course,
in a number of ways. Partly, I think, in its very nature, coming
out of the Patten recommendations for community policing, as these
take effect, with the stress very much on policing rather than
on the police—this is a co-operative effort, this is not
just looking for action from the police, it is looking for partnership
with the local communities, and it is also looking to involve
a range of statutory agencies across the board. And if people
can have confidence in that and can actually see increasingly
the Police Service as one in which they themselves have a stake,
then we believe that, over time, this will change the culture,
because a lot of it is, I think, a cultural, deep-seated problem.
And, obviously, the other changes that are coming with it, the
changes in the composition of the police force, again being designed
to encourage greater community ownership, across the community,
of law enforcement; what really we are wanting people to do is
to have confidence in the law enforcement that is going on through
the statutory agencies. And, equally, I think, also even in the
reorganisation that is coming about from the beginning of April,
when the Police Service will be divided into 29 district command
units, as you know; those are going to be smaller, the Police
Service will be delayered, it will be closer to the people, there
will be more local accountability, all these things we hope will
just encourage the community increasingly to feel part of what
is going on, to co-operate more. But it is a long-term problem.
Mr McCabe
299. You mentioned the Organised Crime Task
Force in your opening remarks, and the role it will play in trying
to tackle some of the criminal activity that seems to underpin
quite a lot of this intimidation. I wonder, are you in a position
to say anything more about the scope of its activities and what
we might expect to see from this Task Force?
(Miss O'Mara) Yes, I can give some sort of indication
of how we see it developing. It was created, as you know, in October,
so it is really just getting under way, but we have had a number
of meetings, under Mr Ingram, chairing; we have seen it going
forward in a number of respects. First of all, analysing what
the scope of the problem is; the police have done a lot of work
in this area already, looking partly to see the whole range of
organised criminal activity that is taking place, both in the
private sector and in the public sector. They have been going
out, doing surveys, trying to get information back, just to see
what the scale of the problem is. I think this is very much as
you were talking about in terms of intimidation, that we think,
actually, it is almost like an iceberg and people really do not
realise just how big these things are. So they are doing that.
Now we have not come to a conclusion on that. What we want to
do, having got that information, is to be able to see the sorts
of strategic areas on which we should be fixing; it is quite easy
probably now even to think of things like fuel smuggling, these
are big things, there are counterfeit goods, obviously—tobacco
smuggling is another big area. We have a number of sub-groups,
this is not to make it too bureaucratic, but really just to get
people together, in a way which had not been happening before,
I think, across the board, so we are trying to see what better
co-ordination we can achieve. We also have, in a separate area,
discussions with the Republic, and we want to see if there are
things that we can do there to increase co-operation that will
make it even more difficult for this kind of racketeering to go
on. We are looking at the law, to see whether there are changes
in the law that can be made. One big area where we are already
making some progress is that the Performance and Innovation Unit
in the Cabinet Office did a study and recommended the creation
of a National Confiscation Agency, which would take in the proceeds,
and Stephen would happily speak a bit more about that, but that
is going forward in the Proceeds of Crime Bill, and we are thinking
about how that could be done in Northern Ireland. And, in many
ways, I think, we feel that Northern Ireland is ripe for this,
because we are small, we have links, obviously, with the devolved
administration, there is a lot of public sector activity there,
and what we want to do is encourage action against criminal activity;
thus obviously, this is not something that operationally we are
responsible for, but the more that we can actually share information
and see what can be done across the board, we can tackle this.
Now all this is being done for organised crime, it is not just
against paramilitaries, obviously, but, clearly, to the extent
that paramilitary activity is going on in this area, it is a good
way of tackling it.
1 The Northern Ireland Office has confirmed that the
figures referred to by Miss O'Mara are for households-whether
families or single occupiers. It comments that it is possible,
although unlikely, that an individual from a household could apply
for re-housing because of intimidation and the other members of
the household remain behind. It is also possible that, at a future
date, another member of the household could apply for re-housing
and would be considered as a separate case and household. The
Housing Executive is not aware of any such situation having arisen. Back
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