Memorandum submitted by the Northern Ireland
Office
RECONCILIATION: WAYS OF DEALING WITH NORTHERN IRELAND'S
PAST
INTRODUCTION
1. For many years, it has been apparent
that the legacy of Northern Ireland's recent past influences,
to a great extent, the views of all sections of the community
in Northern Ireland about its present and its future. It is hard
for people to learn to trust each other and start to build a better
future for the next and future generations while the scars and
divisions of the past remain. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister
made clear his own desire for finding a way of dealing with Northern
Ireland's past:
"I do think it is important that we do try
in Northern Ireland to move beyond the past . . . I don't know
whether necessarily a truth and reconciliation commission is the
right way to do it but I think there needs to be some way of trying
to both allow people to express their grief and their pain and
their anger in respect of what has happened in Northern Ireland
without the past continually dominating the present and the future
and that is what we will try to do."—Prime Minister,
1 April 2004.
2. Shortly after that statement, the Secretary
of State for Northern Ireland announced his intention to focus
on this issue in the months ahead. In his statement to Parliament
on 27 May 2004 (attached at Annex A) he set out his priorities
and objectives for taking forward this work. The Secretary of
State's initial focus was on taking private soundings from a small
group of experts and opinion formers. However his deliberations
have also benefited from comments made to him by a range of individuals,
either directly or in correspondence, and have also taken account
of the wide range of views expressed in the course of Angela Smith's
recent consultation with victims and their families in the context
of developing the next phase of victims' strategies. He has also
visited South Africa, to learn at first hand how that country
dealt with its own deeply troubled past.
3. The Government greatly welcomes the Northern
Ireland Affairs Committee's inquiry into this important area,
and looks forward to hearing the Committee's conclusions and recommendations.
The Secretary of State hopes to be able to say more in the New
Year about how he intends to take forward the next stage of this
work and looks forward to discussing this with the Committee in
due course.
EMERGING THEMES
4. A number of recurring themes have emerged
from the Secretary of State's initial discussions and reflections.
The Government is carefully considering the implications of these
for the next steps in work on dealing with the past in Northern
Ireland. They include:
(a) the difficulty in importing a ready-made
approach to Northern Ireland;
(b) the importance to many of resolving unanswered
questions about the past;
(c) the need to ensure proper respect and
protection for victims and survivors;
(d) the need for any solution to command
widespread acceptance across all sections of the community in
Northern Ireland, and the implications that this has for Government's
role in the process.
5. Each of these themes is dealt with below.
A TAILORED APPROACH
6. The Secretary of State's visit to South
Africa underlined to him very clearly the need to ensure that
any approach to dealing with Northern Ireland's past must be tailored
to Northern Ireland's specific needs, history and culture. The
South African approach was judged a success by many commentators
because it was designed to meet the needs and circumstances that
that country was facing at a particular moment in its history.
Similarly, other countries have adopted different approaches to
dealing with their past. What appears most important is that the
approach taken is designed to deal with the specific situation
in which the country finds itself.
7. It is, of course, important that we learn
from others' experiences, including considering what it was that
made a particular approach work at a particular moment in time.
For example, which approaches work as a conclusion to a conflict
that has already ended, and which work as a means to helping to
bring about that end? But the Secretary of State is clear that
there is no "off-the-shelf solution" and Government
is committed to finding a way forward which is designed specifically
to work for Northern Ireland, taking account of both its current
circumstances and those that pertained during the past 35 years.
RESOLVING UNANSWERED
QUESTIONS
8. Another issue that has been clear from
both the Secretary of State's discussions and Angela Smith's consultation
with victims and survivors is the extent to which, for many people,
the possibility of coming to terms with what has happened in the
past is made more remote because there remain significant unanswered
questions, for example about the fate of their loved ones. There
are around 1,800 unsolved murders relating to the security situation
in the period from 1969 to the Belfast Agreement. There were also
nearly 400 killings by the security forces in these years, of
which some took place in disputed circumstances. For the families
of those killed, the difficulty of not knowing who was responsible
for their loved one's death, or why, continues to be a significant
issue many years on.
9. In some cases, there have been allegations
of misconduct or collusion by the State in a death. In some such
cases, the Government has announced inquiries to investigate these—the
Bloody Sunday Inquiry, set up in 1998; the recently established
inquiries into the deaths of Robert Hamill, Billy Wright and Rosemary
Nelson; and an inquiry into the death of Patrick Finucane, which
will be established as soon as the necessary legislation is in
place. It is the Government's hope that the inquiries will be
able to get to the full facts of what happened in each case, and
establish once and for all what actually happened including whether
allegations of collusion are justified or not. Similarly, there
have been a number of cases that the Police Ombudsman has investigated.
10. The Government recognises, however,
that there is a need to address in a systematic way all of the
unsolved murders of the past 35 years. The Secretary of State
has been working closely with the Chief Constable to develop a
way of taking this forward and much substantial work has already
taken place.
11. The Chief Constable set up the Serious
Crime Review Team (SCRT) within the Police Service of Northern
Ireland in March 2004. In addition to conducting Progress Reviews
into current murders that remain undetected at 28 days, the SCRT's
role includes the examination of the files on some of the unresolved
deaths due to the security situation to establish whether there
is any prospect of fuller reinvestigation leading to an outcome.
Where such an evidential or investigative opportunity has been
identified as a result of this Preliminary Case Assessment, the
SCRT will conduct a "deferred" (or more detailed) review
of the case.
12. This is complex and painstaking work.
Since the creation of the SCRT a total of 97 cases have been the
subject of a Preliminary Case Assessment. In addition seven Deferred
Reviews and four Progress Reviews have been completed over this
period.
13. The Secretary of State announced at
the end of September that the NIO was working with the Chief Constable
and the PSNI on how this work might be expanded to review all
the unresolved deaths from the Troubles in a way that would command
the confidence of the wider community. The Chief Constable recognises
that his current budget does not provide him with the resources
to tackle a project of such a significant scale; the Government
accepts this position and is in discussion with him about resourcing
issues which relate both to funding and to the availability of
police officers and others with the required expertise.
PROPER RESPECT
AND PROTECTION
FOR VICTIMS
AND SURVIVORS
14. The Government recognises the importance
of any strategy for dealing with the legacy of Northern Ireland's
past securing the acceptance of all sections of the community.
This, of course, has a particular resonance for victims and survivors
and for their families.
15. In her role as Victims' Minister, Angela
Smith is working to put in place a strategy that gives victims
and survivors of the Troubles recognition, acknowledgement and,
where appropriate, the necessary help and practical support to
rebuild their lives. Since 1998, the Government has allocated
more than £20 million to initiatives aimed at meeting those
needs. Much has been achieved but more needs to be done.
16. The Minister recognises that it is important
to hear directly from those who have been adversely affected their
views on what improvements Government can make, and over the past
year she has been consulting with victims and survivors and their
representative groups. Leaflets have been issued inviting people
to write with their views and over 100 responses received. Seven
workshops, including one for young people, have been held across
Northern Ireland. The Minister has also met with experts and practitioners
in the field and visited victims' groups throughout the province
hearing the views of the members and the staff who work with them.
17. The Minister has recently issued a summary
of the views gathered to all those who participated (copy at Annex
B). Her next step will be to draw up proposals for improvements
in the arrangements for the planning, co-ordination and delivery
of the services provided to victims to help address the problems
they face.
18. This work clearly ties in very closely
with the Secretary of State's work on the past, and Angela Smith's
research has fed in direct to his consideration of the issue.
The Government is clear that victims' voices must be heard, and
their needs met as part of any approach to dealing with the past.
WIDESPREAD ACCEPTANCE
AND CROSS-COMMUNITY
SUPPORT
19. However, the issue of dealing with the
legacy of Northern Ireland's past goes beyond the immediate victims
and survivors, encompassing the whole community. The Government
is clear that any process for dealing with the past must be one
that all sections of the community can feel comfortable with and
be involved in. This raises the issue of Government's own role
within the process.
20. On the one hand, Government has the
responsibility for ensuring that an appropriate mechanism is found
for dealing with the past to the satisfaction of all sections
of the community. On the other hand, it recognises that, for some
groups, the Governments' role in past events is seen as an issue.
The Government recognises the need to reconcile these two conflicting
positions and is committed to finding a solution that is acceptable
to as many people as possible, consistent with its legitimate
responsibilities.
NEXT STEPS
21. The Government recognises the need both
to resolve all these issues satisfactorily and to do so in a way
and at a pace with which all sections of the community feel comfortable.
To date, the Secretary of State's consultation has been at an
individual level, and in the form of private soundings, but the
Government recognises the need for this to become a much wider
exercise if all sections of the community are to become involved
in the debate.
22. The Secretary of State hopes to make
an announcement in the New Year on the Government's plans for
taking forward this work, at which point he will be happy to discuss
these with the Committee in detail.
Northern Ireland Office
7 December 2004
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