Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620-639)
MRS ANN
BOAL, REVEREND
ANDREW RAWDING,
MRS GILLIAN
GRIGG, MRS
ROSALIND DILLON-LEE
AND COMMODORE
TOBY ELLIOT
23 FEBRUARY 2005
Q620 Reverend Smyth: There has been reference
in the evidence of the Disabled Police Officers' Association that
there have been problems with the Northern Ireland Police Fund.
I have been aware of it. People have received a letter asking
them if they have any problems and, when they send something back,
they are told it does not come under this. Would you like to say
how you propose to remedy the situation or how you think we might
help to remedy the situation?
Mrs Boal: First, it has to be
run by people who are qualified. At the moment, it is being run
by civil servants on secondment who have no prior knowledge of
dealing with victims or the disabled. The place is shrouded in
secrecy at present. For the last six months I have been trying
to get an answer from them. We have put in requests on behalf
of members and they have been totally ignored. John Steele, on
whose recommendation the fund was set up, spent quite a long time
with our members consulting for the review in 2004. He made his
recommendations. He was not happy about how the fund was running
because it did not fall within his remit. Those recommendations
still have not been carried out and there is no work being done
on the fund whatsoever. It needs to be run by someone who would
be empathetic to the needs of widows and the disabled officers.
We talked about psychological therapies. When I get a phone call
from a man who is crying on the other end of the phone, or a message
that a man should be seen at 4 o'clock in the morning, that is
when someone has sunk to their lowest. For them to get psychological
help through the Northern Ireland Police Fund, and that is one
of their remits, they would have to fill in an application form;
it has to be submitted and it takes two months before you get
an answer, and that is when they do answer. That person could
be dead within two months. We work with the Police Rehabilitation
and Retraining Trust and also with an outside agency. We can deal
with that within a week. They also introduced means testing.
Q621 Chairman: Means testing for what?
Mrs Boal: To apply for assistance.
John Steele made it perfectly clear in his original report in
the year 2000 that to means test disabled police officers would
be to insult them. In the second year, they introduced an application
form to be used for means testing. These people now feel that
they are having to beg for help. There are some members who were
injured in 1969/70 and they are having to prove their banding.
There was no Police bandings in those days. I know from personal
experience that if a doctor retires and his medical records are
archived, our members are having to go to hospital and pay for
medical records to show what their initial injuries were. It is
the same with the Northern Ireland Memorial Fund. If you cannot
find your records through the Police, you have to go to the Belfast
Telegraph and look for clippings from a newspaper to show
that you were involved in a particular incident.
Q622 Chairman: Have you put any of these
points on behalf of your association to a Minister?
Mrs Boal: Yes. I had a meeting
with Angela Smith two weeks ago.
Q623 Chairman: What has come out of that?
Mrs Boal: Nothing.
Q624 Chairman: Nothing yet.
Mrs Boal: Nothing yet.
Q625 Chairman: What did she say to you?
Mrs Boal: With regard to the Police
fund, she said she would talk to—
Q626 Chairman: You put all these points
to her?
Mrs Boal: Yes, everything.
Q627 Chairman: As it so happens, I am
seeing the Secretary of State tomorrow and I will undertake to
tell him that you are waiting for a reply, because that is the
least that you are owed.
Mrs Boal: Thank you very much.
Q628 Reverend Smyth: When you say no
annual report is published, how would one discover how much money
had been paid out?
Mrs Boal: I have asked for a copy
of their annual report. As a company I know, because we went through
the rigours with our organisation in the past and I asked for
a copy of their annual report and their finances, and I was sent
a copy of their memorandum and articles of association. So nothing
has been sent out.
Chairman: We have the sense of what you
are saying, Mrs Boal. I promise you I will take this up with the
Minister.
Q629 Mr Beggs: Can I focus at this point
on remembrance. I want to ask the group: what more should be done
to remember the service of your members by loved ones in Northern
Ireland? With what remembrance projects have your organisations
recently been involved?
Mrs Boal: We talk about recognition
and acknowledgement. These are our two focus words this year in
our organisation. Our members collectively have discussed the
possibility of a medal, nothing elaborate but some form of recognition.
It is said that the Yanks get Purple Hearts when they are disabled.
This is a form of acknowledgment. I spoke recently with the Deputy
Chief Constable. The PSNI asked what they could do for our organisation.
We said, "Ask some of your senior members to turn up at our
events". That was all we needed, for them to show that they
were still interested. They did a lot more. I have to say we have
one hundred per cent support from the current Chief Constable
and the PSNI. We thought our members should get a medal to acknowledge
their sacrifice.
Q630 Reverend Smyth: To you, Reverend
Rawding, will living memorials like the Curtis/Restorick database
help to address the alienation felt by veterans of the `troubles'?
Reverend Rawding: Yes, I think
so, providing it receives official recognition. If it is just
an internal exercise, what is the point? I think there is a real
issue about acknowledgement. We have the Ulster Ash Grove. I have
not done the research because we just do not have the money to
do it but my guess is that there are still veterans who do not
know that the Ulster Ash Grove exists. In fact, the lady sitting
at the end of this table did not know until earlier this afternoon
that it exists. Therefore, there could be a tree there which is
in remembrance of her husband and she does not know about it.
In addition, £500,000 has been paid to Deloittes to conduct
a consultation about memorials. We still do not have plaques at
each of the trees at Ulster Ash Grove. Relatives still do not
even know about it. Their consultation will end on 11 March and
their consultation pack and questionnaire is primarily for relatives.
Relatives need memorials but a veteran who actually saw his colleague
die, saw the injuries and survived it himself, needs to be consulted
as well. Why is half a million pounds being paid to an organisation
which has nothing to do with the military but yet no-one is willing
to pay for plaques at one particular current memorial and no-one
is willing to pay to let the relatives of the people who have
had trees planted know that it even exists. The Curtis/Restorick
database will just be a nice little project unless someone says
that they are going to give some funding because they want to
acknowledge all the experiences of military veterans in Northern
Ireland.
Q631 Chairman: Have you contacted the
Minister responsible for veterans' affairs about this?
Reverend Rawding: Yes. One of
our key members whose son was killed in Northern Ireland has campaigned
vigorously on these issues.
Q632 Chairman: Have you as an organisation
approached the Minister for Veteran Affairs, Ivor Caplan about
this?
Reverend Rawding: I do not think
formally as an organisation we have done that.
Chairman: May I recommend that you do
because you need to put pressure on these people. I am not criticising.
He does not know that this is a beef that your members have and
he should, and you should tell him. Either he will do something
about it or you will be able to complain that he has not. You
have not tried these avenues. This is what Ministers are for.
Q633 Mr Swire: Can I ask for some clarification
from Reverend Andrew Rawding? Are you saying that you feel that
the former colleagues of those killed in Northern Ireland should
be consulted in the same way as are the surviving relations?
Reverend Rawding: Yes.
Q634 Mr Swire: Then surely you could
be talking about whole companies, platoons, regiments, whatever?
Reverend Rawding: If we are talking
about the impact of the conflict in Northern Ireland on people,
then we need to be talking about everyone, not just the relatives.
Q635 Mr Swire: What happens to those
survivors, families of survivors and colleagues who survived the
Falklands, Bosnia and other events?
Reverend Rawding: They should
be acknowledged as well but we are talking specifically about
Northern Ireland and money is being allocated to various groups
and to specific projects related to Northern Ireland. I have talked
about a figure of half a million pounds. Specifically in relation
to Northern Ireland, this is an issue. I daresay it is a general
issue regarding the Falkland Islands and other wars too.
Q636 Chairman: At one stage there were
50,000 soldiers in Northern Ireland. Are you suggesting that all
of those should be consulted? We have to look at the practicalities
of this, have we not?
Reverend Rawding: Yes[4].
Q637 Chairman: It is a pretty firm argument
that those who lost loved ones or had loved ones severely wounded
are the people who really need to be consulted about the memorial.
Reverend Rawding: I would not
want to take anything at all away from any loved ones or relatives.
They must be consulted. All I am saying is that there should also
be an acknowledgment of the needs of veterans and their need to
remember and their need to recover from the impact of their friends
dying.
Mrs Grigg: I am most interested
in this consultation process because the War Widows' Association
has not heard anything about this. My colleague here has not heard
anything. We would like to be included when information such as
this does go out to ex-service people.
Chairman: It is becoming apparent to
us that the consultation and communication is not all that it
might be and we shall so report. That is for another day.
Q638 Mr Pound: I think most of the points
I was going to ask have been picked up already. I would reiterate
the point the Chairman made about actually raising your own profile.
I deal with organisations like the Army Benevolent Fund, the Relatives
of the Fallen, Soldiers and the Sailors and Air Force Families'
Association. The only reason I know about those, except where
I have personal family knowledge or personal experience of it,
is because they have been to see me as a Member of Parliament.
I certainly do not mean to be patronising in any way when I say
that the first rule of politics is that the squeaky wheel is the
one that gets the oil. I would advise you occasionally, if I may,
meaning no disrespect, to squeak from time to time. Could I ask
you collectively about a Victims' Ombudsman? Do any of you feel
that there is anything in the creation of a Victims' Ombudsman?
Mrs Boal: I definitely do for
our case in Northern Ireland. At my meeting last week with Angela
Smith I spoke to her and we are talking about the same issue but
she said, "I will have to talk to Mr Pearson". We need
one person with a finger in the post to whom we can go directly.
When the Victims' Liaison Unit first opened at Stormont, and I
think Sir Ken was part and parcel of that, we knew if we had a
problem that was our one focus, that we could go there; we could
lift the phone and get it sorted out. Now that has been diluted.
We have so many different places to which to go.
Q639 Chairman: Except that Angela Smith
is the Minister responsible for victims and she has overall responsibility
across departments for that. Was she saying that some of this
was not her business?
Mrs Boal: She said that the Police
Fund, which is a victims' fund, was the remit of Ian Pearson.
4 Of course there is no need to consult every soldier
who has served in Northern Ireland. However Regimental Associations
and other veterans organisations should have a reasonable knowledge
of who was involved in any particular incident. The use of a civilian
organisation to carry out the consultation, and particularly one
which is located in Northern Ireland, would discourage some relatives
and veterans from giving a response. Many relatives and veterans
in Great Britain would not want to send a response to Northern
Ireland or be visited by a research team from Northern Ireland.
There are issues of trust, security and ongoing welfare support
involved here. Back
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