Examination of Witnesses (Questions 720-730)
MR MICHAEL
GALLAGHER, MR
WILLIAM JAMESON,
MR WILLIAM
FRAZER AND
MR WILLIAM
WILKINSON
28 FEBRUARY 2005
Q720 Chairman: I was not seeking to make
any sort of comparison, but you were saying you were seriously
under-funded.
Mr Frazer: We are, we would need
another half a dozen workers, we would need at least 10 workers
in our organisation. You have to remember, sir, that we come from
one of the worst-affected areas in Northern Ireland and we are
still living under a high degree of threat. The army and police
do not come down the roads in armoured vehicles, they still fly
in and out in helicopters.
Mr Gallagher: If you have got
the figures there, Chairman, could you tell me how much our organisation
has received in the last almost seven years?
Chairman: The Omagh Bomb Self-Help Group:
you have done much less well, you have had £17,000 up until
March of last year.
Q721 Mr Clarke: That is my point about
it being an industry.
Mr Gallagher: There is no mistake
about it, it is an industry, and I am glad that you people are
here listening to me today. That money has to go to the victims,
and I think a question I have always wished to be in front of
you and ask is find out how much consultants have been paid by
the Northern Ireland Office, by the First Minister's Office. This
whole business about money that has been paid out there, you are
not getting value for money, the British Treasury is not getting
value for money in dealing with victims in Northern Ireland. We
have done a hell of a lot of work in six years with little or
no funding, and I am not even sure if we would have done a lot
more work had we had a lot of funding, but my focus again is on
a proper compensation package for the victims, and maybe we would
not need a lot of this work done. Our members do not want to come
in and get cups of tea and go on bus runs, they want to be able
to sustain themselves because most of the people who are victims
as a result of the Troubles end up on benefits for the rest of
their lives. At the moment we have money to provide therapeutic
help to them; I would rather that those people had the money themselves
and they could choose. If they want to go on holiday they do not
need the Northern Ireland Memorial Fund to say you have to go
here, you have to go then and whatever, they can choose to go
on holiday. If they need money to pay a bill for utilities, they
do not need to worry about where that money is coming out of,
that is what I mean by a proper compensation package. Just going
back to the question of your colleague there about the story-telling,
I see the story-telling as a substitute for justice. Could you
imagine you sitting in front of the families of Sarah Payne or
the two little girls at Soham, or Jill Dando—these are all
high profile murders that happened after Omagh. The perpetrators
have been through the due process and they are now serving their
sentences for these crimes; we have over 2,000 unsolved murders
in Northern Ireland yet nobody is saying to these families you
can tell your story if you like. I am not so sure that the cold
case review is going to work because if you could not convict
the people at the time—I know that there have been advances
in forensics but I am not so sure that we have got the qualified
cold case officers here in Northern Ireland because there has
never been that sort of culture. Policing in Northern Ireland
has been 25 years behind what it is in the United Kingdom and
there is a reason for that, it has been held back because of terrorist
activity and we have lost out on it. Particularly within the Protestant
community now there is this question of are we helping the terrorists
by challenging the fact that we do not have an effective police
force? I have challenged that as a Catholic, not because I want
to be attacking the police but because I want to make the police
more effective, I want there to be a better police system. Those
are my views on the story-telling, it may have value for some
people but it certainly is not a substitute and I would not like
to go down the South African process.
Q722 Mr Clarke: I know there are others
that want to come in, but in terms of the time we have got I am
going to throw another very quick question in there so that if
people are answering they can answer that question at the same
time. If we want more justice, if we want more people in court,
are we prepared to offer immunity to those who come forward with
the truth?
Mr Gallagher: Absolutely, there
is no question about it. If you look at how justice systems have
worked throughout the world—and America has proven this
with the mafia—you have to give immunity to people who are
willing the come forward, that is how you break organisations,
that is how you destroy them. You have to recognise that there
is a price to pay for that, that is immunity, but I do not mean
immunity if someone is going to come into this room as a perpetrator
and tell me how they perpetrated the Omagh bomb and then walk
out. They have gained a lot from this process and I as a victim
have gained very little. If they want to come in here and say
these are the 18 other guys that participated in this bombing,
those are their names and how they done it, then I would say to
the guy that walks out "I am unhappy about letting you walk
out of here, but at least I am getting some form of justice."
Mr Frazer: This is a very important
thing with our people because a lot of our people put the uniform
on to protect law and order, and we will not give immunity to
anybody, because if we do we send a signal to our children that
the only way forward is through violence. The fact that my father
and my other family members and the people we represent put the
uniform on, justice has to be seen to be done. If the Government
does not do it, that is their problem, but the people will not
take the responsibility of it because I want to be able to look
my children in the eye and say it was not me that done so, it
was the Government.
Q723 Chairman: That is an interesting
alternative view.
Mr Frazer: Yes. If I can go back
to the £500,000, if you look at a group in Crossmaglen of
prisoners, who had £258,000 in one clout—we were told
when we challenged it, because there were very few prisoners ever
in South Armagh, that if they were held for seven days they were
eligible to be called a prisoner.
Q724 Chairman: Do you know what that
group was called?
Mr Wilkinson: We can provide a
comparison of funding.
Mr Frazer: If you look at value
for money, there is not another organisation—
Q725 Chairman: I am just interested.
We have got a Parliamentary answer with all the groups on here
and I cannot see one called Crossmaglen and it may be called something
else.
Mr Wilkinson: It is in Irish.
We can certainly provide a comparative study about the different
groups.
Mr Frazer: They change their names
pretty often, Chairman.
Q726 Chairman: I am sure they do. Mr
Campbell.
Mr Wilkinson: Could I just make
one point? I am sorry, I think it does have to be put on the record
again that whilst I can understand what Michael has to say, that
certainly individuals who are prepared to give evidence against
their former compatriots in organisations may well be afforded
certain incentives—and I think there is a precedent certainly
for that in the criminal justice system—there has to be
a very clear differentiation made in sentencing terms, in terms
of a reduced sentence perhaps; the idea of an amnesty traded for
the truth, as an organisation—and I am sure I could guarantee
the support of the majority of victims groups, victims of terrorism—we
would agree with the point that truth can never be traded for
amnesty. Truth and justice must not be sacrificed and we must
remember the simple rule that justice and the rule of law plays
in any society, especially a society that is trying to emerge
from conflict. Just a series of points that you will perhaps consider,
that to us justice plays a vital role in any democratic society
because it gets recognition, firstly, for the victims, recognition
that they have been wronged and recognition that the state has
failed. Secondly, it can offer some degree of recompense, recompense
at an individual level, perhaps through compensation, but also
through redress. There is a feeling somewhere that, as a result
of this person being made a victim, that can be redressed. Then
re-education: in any society people must be educated as to the
benefits of the rule of law and adherence to that. Finally, it
prevents repetition and guarantees the future safety of people,
so we would never be prepared to sacrifice what we see as a traditional
British model of truth recovery. We have that in place, it has
been honed for Northern Ireland's particular circumstances through
many years of violence and members of the police force and also
members of the judiciary have paid the supreme sacrifice to maintain
the integrity and the effectiveness of the truth recovery process
which operates in Northern Ireland as in the rest of the United
Kingdom. It is a right that we would maintain, that we would hold,
and that is the criminal justice system. That is what we would
put forward as our model. Certainly it has been reformed and it
can certainly evolve to meet any future changes, but we believe
that since the criminal justice review has been put forward, all
participants, even the republican organisations—even Sinn
Fein—have bought into this, we can hear no voices of dissent.
Surely if everybody has bought into the model for criminal justice
review, does this not offer the best way forward for truth recovery
in Northern Ireland and dealing with the past?
Mr Gallagher: Could I just query
something, in case there is any misunderstanding, Chairman? When
I am talking about somebody coming forward and being a witness,
I am talking about Crown immunity, which is within the normal
court process. People in Britain, who are members of criminal
gangs, stand up every day and tell the truth about their role.
That is what I am talking about, I am not talking about any form
of amnesty.
Chairman: Right, that is clear. Mr Campbell.
Q727 Mr Campbell: Just on the issue of
cross-community work—and I know there was a reference to
it in answer to a previous question—some witnesses have
indicated—you will appreciate that the Committee have been
speaking to a range of people—that they are concerned or
fearful about engaging in cross-community work. When I ask this
question I am talking about genuine cross-community work and I
was pleased to hear you in an earlier part making it very clear
that you would distinguish between perpetrators and victims, because
at the outset of the Committee's deliberations we made precisely
the same point. So it is genuine cross-community work that I am
talking about, not being expected to get in with perpetrators.
Have you found that in your experience, have you knowledge of
people who are concerned because of security implications or if
there are other concerns that they may have regarding cross-community
work among victims?
Mr Gallagher: I think it would
be wrong to force people into a position where they were uncomfortable
because they have been a victim in the past. We would have concerns
ourselves about who exactly we are working with, but I think that
is a natural concern. People should be encouraged to mix with
one another right across the community because there are a lot
of good people on both sides. We have no difficulty working across
the community, across the border or internationally with anyone
as long as they want to support the system of law and order in
a country, so that is not a problem.
Mr Wilkinson: Just as a point
of information, which I am sure you are amply aware of, often
the people who have on-going links with terrorist organisations
or their criminal offshoots either front up or are involved in
community organisations. I think it was a point that was underscored
by the first international monitoring commission report and it
is pandemic in Northern Ireland, especially in the urban setting,
that organisations that claim to represent their communities are
often no more than a front for paramilitary organisations, and
several so-called community workers have been returned to prison
because of their activities. So we always are very careful and
that is the problem, it is a barrier to genuine community work
because of the individuals who are involved and who often are
the voices of the communities they represent.
Q728 Mr Campbell: If I could ask just
one more question, chairman, you know the whole process of an
official truth and reconciliation ideology that from time to time
gets mentioned—and the Secretary of State has mentioned
it as well—do each of you think that now is the right time
or will there ever be a right to embark on that sort of issue?
Mr Frazer: Truth and reconciliation
will never be acceptable to the victims, because we know the truth.
I know every man who was involved in the murder of my father and
my family members, I know every one of them, so what more truth
do I need to know?
Mr Jameson: If I was an IRA man
and I had done what they have done, and I go out here and tell
all these people who are victims here, "Yes, I was a perpetrator",
he would go out of that door happy as Larry. He has cleared his
belly, as they say here in Northern Ireland, yet we as the victims
still have to live with it. The only man getting his conscience
clear is the guy who perpetrated it.
Mr Frazer: Could I just mention
the one on cross-community, and I will cut to the chase here because
everybody sees FAIR as controversial, we are seen as the bad guys
within the victims sector and I am sure nobody will say anything
different here in front of you. We have Catholics in our organisation,
I work regularly with Catholics, I have had letters from nuns
and priests thanking me for the work with people in the Catholic
community. I can lift the phone and ring three or four Catholic
families who are genuine people who have been attacked by the
thugs within their communities. A quick example: one family in
Newry, because the young fellow gave an IRA man a thump in a bar,
he went to his house that night and broke his arms and legs with
a baseball bat. He obviously went to hospital and then he went
to the police and all; they sent him to Victim support. Victim
Support advised him to go to Sinn Fein, the very people that had
been to their house. That family did not know what to do; the
mother rang me at eleven o'clock at night crying. That is the
reality of the situation, that is the truth of the matter.
Mr Wilkinson: Instead of taking
up the time, perhaps, of the members today is it possible to submit
further evidence?
Q729 Chairman: Certainly, any time you
like.
Mr Wilkinson: We have looked at
the South African model, we were sad to see that that seemed to
be the Secretary of State's first port of call in this issue because
that concerns the victims, but amnesty is the key reason. The
continuing theme through truth and reconciliation commissions
internationally is the caveat that any people who participate
are granted an amnesty; we believe that is the fundamental flaw.
Q730 Chairman: I think, to be fair, so
does the Secretary of State.
Mr Frazer: Chairman, can I ask,
is Guinness free or something out in South Africa? I would like
to know what the big attraction is out there and how much money
has been spent. You talk about the £500,000 we have had,
but how much money has been spent going to South Africa?
Chairman: That is not a question for
me. Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for coming. We are running
way late, but it has been very interesting to hear what you have
to say and we are very grateful to you for taking the time.
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