Examination of Witnesses (Questions 580-585)
MR TREVOR
RINGLAND AND
DR CHRIS
GIBSON OBE
22 FEBRUARY 2005
Q580 Chairman: We would be very interested
to see your evaluation when you come to do it.
Dr Gibson: We did some initial
market research and what that told us was that if 55 or 60 per
cent of people see it six times or more—and 95 per cent
of the population will see it during our campaign—it will
impact them and they will start to get to the point you are talking
about, the action stage. We believe the penetration it would get
is reasonable and that we will make an impact. As Trevor said,
what we will then do is try and measure that. At the moment we
are getting quite a number of telephone calls and e-mails because
we have also been putting that out to e-mail addresses, about
"What have I done? What step have I taken?", and that
has been flowing in. We are trying to respond to that but again
it is about capacity. We are a one-woman organisation, Lesley,
who is not with us today, and the rest of us are packing in behind
that.
Mr Ringland: We are not massively
funded.
Q581 Mr Pound: Point taken.
Mr Ringland: One of the frustrations
is that in 1998 people on the whole endorsed the concept about
bringing people together and building bridges and to some extent
we have paid lip service to that. Here if you press the wrong
buttons you get a bad reaction; if you press the right buttons
you get a very good reaction, like with the Tsunami appeal. In
two weeks you had a million pounds going into a wooden barrel
outside a church in the street in Belfast. I can tell you now
there were traffic jams, queues of people. That is the true character
of the Northern Ireland people. However, I do think we have paid
lip service to the shared future concept. I think it needs to
be more actively promoted. It needs more funding. If I was given
£70 million, which appears to have been given to certain
other organisations towards a shared future, I could have a reasonably
good go at it. Even if you talk about the First World War, the
fact that the troops fought side by side, these relationships
that could have been quashed for many years have now been rediscovered
and people are starting to relax a wee bit more about things.
We need something to keep that concept of building bridges. It
is about understanding the past but we need a more positive outlook
for the future. We need that to be kept going in some shape or
form. We are feeding into Community Relations Week as well on
7 March during which we hope a lot of examples of people doing
things on a cross-community basis will be shown.
Mr Pound: I am sure you are aware that
Living Life Without Barriers has been picked up internationally.
There are now references not just beyond these islands but beyond
Europe. Just finally for the record, do either of you feel that
the concept of a truth commission has any validity?
Chairman: I think we had a very robust
answer to that.
Q582 Mr Pound: Just for the record.
Mr Ringland: As a lawyer I would
love to have a truth commission.
Q583 Mr Pound: Point made. That is an
excellent answer!
Dr Gibson: One of the other aspects
is education. I am a trustee of the Irish School of Ecunemics
who have been putting a lot of effort into training people in
reconciliation studies. What we have been growing, if you like,
is a number of skills and techniques in people who are available.
It is not that there are not people available to do this work;
there are, but they need to be orchestrated, co-ordinated and
then left.
Q584 Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very
much for coming. It has been very helpful to hear your perspective
which is not a million miles from the conclusions that the committee
has started to come to.
Mr Ringland: Thank you for your
interest, gentlemen. It is not appreciated sometimes by the people
in Northern Ireland the amount of interest that people in the
rest of the UK do take in our affairs. It is appreciated and your
concerns are most welcome.
Q585 Chairman: We do our bit on this
committee to try and replace the democracy that you have so far
not quite got a grasp of.
Dr Gibson: We will get there.
Chairman: You are getting there. Things
are changing.
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