Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 681-699)

MR MICHAEL GALLAGHER, MR WILLIAM JAMESON, MR WILLIAM FRAZER AND MR WILLIAM WILKINSON

28 FEBRUARY 2005

  Q681 Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you for coming to help us with this inquiry because, as you know, we are struggling to find a way forward, to put the past behind us, what sort of means might best be used to achieve that. We know where you come from and perhaps you would like to tell us first of all what the purpose of your work is as briefly as possible—we know how it started—and what really the purpose of your work is for the victims of the conflict.

  Mr Gallagher: We now have Mr Frazer.

  Mr Frazer: Sorry if I am late.

  Q682 Chairman: Not at all, I gather you have come rather a long way.

  Mr Frazer: Yes, I just landed this morning.

  Q683 Chairman: You are very welcome. Mr Gallagher, Mr Jameson, just tell us a little bit about your work with the victims?

  Mr Gallagher: The group we represent was formed really within two months of the Omagh bomb; it was the Omagh bomb families that got together themselves because we felt that there was not the support that we needed, and I am not so sure at the end of the day at that time that any support could have helped us, but we just felt that we got support from each other. The group was formed and it consisted of a wide variety of people coming from different religious and political backgrounds, and when we had meetings we did not ask anyone to leave their politics or religion outside the door and it did not become an issue. The key thing that united us was the fact that we all wanted justice and the group went on to continue to support each other—that was the primary function of the group—and then at a later date there came issues that we had to deal with, issues arising out of the Omagh Fund, how the Fund was distributing and handling the charity that was sent to Omagh, there were many questions around that, and events that were happening in the aftermath of Omagh, the generosity of people, there seemed to be some confusion on how that was handled. Those were the first issues that we got involved in and how the Omagh District Council and the Sperrin Lakeland Trust were not very much involved in that. We fed back to those agencies and other Government agencies. Then, coming up to the Ombudsman's investigation into the investigation into the Omagh bomb, the justice issue then became more real for the families, but just prior to that we had concerns that there was no convictions and we had pursued the RUC at that time. That was something that we were very much involved in, but the group seems to have evolved around the issue of pursuing those who planted the bomb in Omagh, that was a big part of it, the fact that we had little or no justice three years after the event. We then had what we call the Nuala O'Loan/Ronnie Flanagan affair, but in the interim we were very much focused on the people who planted the bomb in Omagh. We held a vigil outside a pub in west Belfast where they were holding a fundraiser; we also went to Central London where they had organised a fundraiser with a Cuban solidarity group and a Turkish terrorist group.

  Q684 Chairman: Who, the IRA had?

  Mr Gallagher: The 32 Counties Sovereign Movement, which was the political wing of the Real IRA.

  Q685 Chairman: INLA, yes.

  Mr Gallagher: No, Real IRA.

  Q686 Chairman: The Real IRA, yes. I am sorry, I do know what I am talking about, I have just got my letters in the wrong order.

  Mr Gallagher: There are so many three-letter groups in Northern Ireland. What happened was we pursued those people and we sought the help of government to pursue them, and I must say that that did not always happen. One of the most important things the group has ever done was to put the Real IRA on the American foreign terrorists list; the Irish Government were not keen on that at all, they in fact opposed it, but nevertheless it did happen and that was the first time that an Irish terrorist group had ever been on the American foreign terrorist list. That was one of the first acts of President Bush when he came into power and then again it was renewed, it is renewed every two years, and it was renewed again after it expired. We have quite a difficult job putting pressure on the Governments to pursue terrorists, and some of us—Billy and myself and others—had a meeting with David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, because we had concerns about the 2000 Terrorist Bill. There seems to be a view within the British and Irish Governments—and it is not common anywhere else because I came back yesterday from Bogota and other governments in other countries do not make a distinction between national and international terrorists. Our feeling was why should you be selective because terrorists do co-operate across borders, but there seems to be an attitude here of treating Irish terrorists as different from all the other terrorist organisations, and we pressed the Home Secretary on this. We can only assume that the British Government does not want to offend terrorists by calling them exactly what they are, terrorists, and we have noted now when attacks take place that it is either loyalist paramilitaries or republican paramilitaries or dissidents, the word "terrorist" seems to have been removed from the dictionary that we used too often in Northern Ireland over the past 35 years. That is basically where we are, we have had that struggle with the Irish Government but we overcame it, and the Secretary of State again did not make any changes in the 2000 Terrorist Bill so all the regulations that apply after September 11, a lot of them do not apply to Irish terrorists, and we do not see these terrorists being pursued in the same way.

  Q687 Chairman: Thank you very much. It is a question really of how we start to create discussion about reconciliation. Do you think that should be victim-centred, or does that put too much pressure on those who suffered the most?

  Mr Jameson: I would like to respond to that. What is a victim over in Northern Ireland? The problem now is that we have so many victims or so-called victims, people dealing in drugs, gangsters, they are all classed as victims. They are not victims of terrorism, they are victims of their own doing.

  Q688 Chairman: I think one can leave drug dealers out of this for the moment.

  Mr Jameson: But the government have not, they are giving away millions of pounds from the memorial fund—

  Mr Gallagher: That was the fund set up for victims.

  Mr Jameson: It has been hijacked now, the Government hijacked it themselves by saying if you are involved as a victim of a drug dealer you can go to the memorial fund and pick up £200 or £300, yet us as victims of terrorism—not troubles, terrorism—we have the same following through as they have. I go back to Mr Bloomfield's report here—it was a joke, I thought. He escaped the real meaning, i.e. we are victims of terrorism, not troubles, terrorism. Probably I am walking way too far here, but under the 1988 Criminal Justice Act if you were not within 25 yards of a bomb going off, you were not entitled to compensation. Because the Omagh bomb happened in 1998 we are in between two stools, we are not classed as victims according to Mr Bloomfield's report, and we want an answer from yourself on this.

  Q689 Chairman: It is not for anybody to answer questions now. (A person walks into the hearing). Excuse me, who is this?

  Mr Frazer: He is a colleague of mine. He was on the same plane. I am sorry, did you not realise that he was coming?

  Chairman: Fine. Let us try and get away, if we can, from the general points to the specific, which is what I think you can help us with. Mr Roy Beggs.

  Q690 Mr Beggs: Good afternoon. How far have Government initiatives succeeded in addressing the practical needs of victims?

  Mr Frazer: I will respond, if it is open to the floor. The Government basically is only doing the minimum that they think they can get away with, and in reality they are producing these so-called groups who are running an agenda alongside the Government.

  Q691 Chairman: Which sort of groups?

  Mr Frazer: Like the Trauma Advisory Panel which we have actually withdrawn from because there are more prisoner groups on it now than there are victims groups. These people are supposed to deal with victims; we know some of the things that they have organised—they were bringing people off the street out of community groups and using victims' money to take them away to do different things. The problem is, victims will not go to these groups because they do not know who they are dealing with. There is a security problem, there is a trust problem, they will not go to them, but the Government has given them money hand over fist to work with victims and they have not got the ability to do it. They are pulling in everybody and anybody to make up numbers; people sit on these trauma advisory groups and there are prisoners groups, there is everybody and their dog except for victims. That has to stop because the Government is talking about 18½ million victims: it is a rotten lie, so it is. I stand over that and I will challenge any Government Minister that wants to sit there and put the figures out. That is in fact, not in Government statistics, where the money has gone. This is where the problem is coming from, they are not dealing with the victims, they are dealing with the perpetrators, anybody that will make up numbers. Trips have been organised in this country, taking 50 people away and they might have five of them who are victims. It is costing £5,000 or £6,000 a time, and there are victims actually out there who cannot get the money that is needed to help them, but it is because these people are saying it is cross-community. The reality is that cross-community is paramilitary and victim, that is what they are moving towards. Cross-community between Catholic and Protestant is not a problem, but it is a problem to be perpetrator and victim, and anywhere you go in the world—as Michael said, we have come back from Colombia, there was no perpetrator at that conference and there were certainly none standing on the platform, so why should I come back to Northern Ireland and be asked to stand on the platform with one in Northern Ireland.

  Mr Gallagher: If I could just come back, Mr Chairman, to the question you asked about reconciliation; if you were sitting where I am sitting and people mention reconciliation, what exactly do they mean by that? Do they mean that I should reconcile with the person that assassinated my brother and murdered my son? My colleague, William Jameson, is a Presbyterian, I am a Roman Catholic: we have no problem with each other, but if you are saying reconcile with the perpetrators, that is an entirely different ball-game. That is a personal choice that the victims have to make: some may choose to make that and some may not, but what I have decided to do is work with the victims, but I do agree with what William has said that there seems to be almost a muddying of the waters here, that the victim and the perpetrator are not being reasonable if they do not come together. Many of the conferences we go to here in Northern Ireland, people are saying everybody in Northern Ireland is a victim. People can judge it whatever way they want but, again, this is the second international conference on victims of terrorism that I have been to, last year was the first one in Madrid. I have not seen any perpetrators at those conferences and the word terrorism is used. We have never faced up to it and said these people are terrorists.

  Q692 Chairman: I think we have; we called the IRA terrorists.

  Mr Gallagher: But you have stopped calling them, as I pointed out.

  Q693 Chairman: Some have. Please give your name and where you are from so we have it on the record.

  Mr Wilkinson: My name is William Wilkinson, I work as a researcher for FAIR—Families Acting for Innocent Relatives. I really want to underscore what I have heard before; the difficulty in dealing with the past, even in practical terms, is the idea of who exactly is a victim? I think it is only, as Michael has said, whenever we step outside Northern Ireland that we see a clear picture of exactly, in international terms, the differentiations made. The problem is that in the undue haste that there has been to, I suppose, construct a political deal in Northern Ireland there is an inclusive political model being used. The difficulty is that that cannot be squared with dealing with the past vis a vis victims, in that the politicians, whilst subject to society, may not have the same problems, it is extremely difficult if not impossible at this period in time for victims to be forced together. I suppose the first point that we have always made is that if anybody is genuine in their attempt to deal with Northern Ireland's past, the first thing they must task themselves to do is to actually deal with victims, they are the most obvious, some are bereaved but they are very much the visible and physical product of the past. The first thing I suppose we would underscore to the Committee is that we are very glad you have taken the time to meet victims and their representatives; anybody who is genuine in their attempt to deal with Northern Ireland's past must deal primarily with victims and, sadly, we have seen previously that that perhaps has been an afterthought. We would like, as we see it, the opportunity here for the first time for victims to be placed, as we can see with other governments such as Colombia, Spain, very much in the vanguard of attempts to deal with the past.

  Chairman: That is very interesting. We have a lot of questions to get through, I must say. I have asked my colleagues to make their questions brief and I would be very grateful if you would do your best to make your answers brief. Mr Beggs.

  Q694 Mr Beggs: Would the creation of a victims ombudsman help to ensure that the needs of victims are heard within government?

  Mr Wilkinson: Yes. We as a group—and certainly we have lobbied within other groups in Northern Ireland—would certainly support that idea and, as a model, we have looked to the Children Commissioner for Northern Ireland, and the general rationale for that commission also applies to victims.

  Q695 Chairman: You probably have not heard yet—and this may cut the rest of it short—that two days ago the Secretary of State announced that he planned to appoint a victims commissioner.

  Mr Frazer: I actually did know, Chairman, that that was supposed to happen but within politics, until you actually hear that it has happened—

  Q696 Chairman: It has not happened, I said it is going to happen.

  Mr Gallagher: If I could just mention two things briefly here, just on the second question, what views do you have regarding the Government's dealing with the past initiative, the first thing that needs to happen is that there needs to be a proper compensation package for the victims of the past 35 years. The benefit of that would be that we do not need bus trips and go to meetings with cups of tea—I do not really want to be sitting here doing what I am doing. I was never a member of any group before the Omagh bomb and we can deal, believe it or not, with what we have got to deal with, the issues in our lives. I will move on, but until that happens we cannot do that. The memorial fund has already been mentioned, there are millions and there probably will be billions because they have now moved the goalposts to include drug dealers, people who were victims of feuds between paramilitary groups—that is one point I want to make. The other point is that a few weeks ago I had a phone call from a journalist based in London, a French journalist. It has been announced by the European Commission that there is going to be a European day of remembrance for victims of terrorism, and what he says here is "Working on behalf of the European Commission for justice, freedom and security we intend to interview people who have been confronted with acts of terrorism in Europe. Our goal is to inform the European public about the lives of victims and their relatives of terrorism. The film will be proposed to TV channels in Europe in order to accompany the first European day of remembrance for victims of terrorism which will take place on 11 March 2005, one year after the bombings in Madrid." This film crew came from Toulouse in France; they interviewed people in eight European countries, victims of terrorism. They interviewed myself and a lady whose son died in the Omagh bomb and they interviewed two people in mainland Britain, one was a victim of Lockerbie and I think the other one was a victim of a foreign terrorist act. I also asked them who else they were interviewing and they said they were interviewing senior Government ministers in each country, and they said they had learned that there was a victims minister here in Northern Ireland. They applied to interview her and she refused and she pointed them towards the Home Office, who also refused. These were people who did not fully understand the position in Northern Ireland—they could not understand why Government ministers would not participate in the interviews. This was something that was passed by the European Commission, so that is how Government treats victims, they are almost trying to wipe this out as if it did not happen. I can furnish you with the details of these people who came here and conducted the interview; the interviews will be shown on European television on 11 March, but the Government has not participated.

  Q697 Chairman: Thank you for that.

  Mr Frazer: The thing about the victims commissioner is, are victims going to be involved in who is actually appointed?

  Q698 Chairman: The Government has to make that appointment.

  Mr Frazer: Yes, but will the victims have an input?

  Q699 Chairman: I do not know. The Secretary of State will consult, but if you have a strong feeling about it there is nothing to stop you writing to the Secretary of State.

  Mr Gallagher: Surely the Secretary of State should consult the views of the victims.


 
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