On behalf of the committee, I welcome victims' rights campaigner Mr. Raymond McCord, who is accompanied by Mr. Richard Sullivan. I also welcome from the WAVE Trauma Centre Dr. Sandra Peake, chief executive officer, and Mr. Dennis Godfrey, board member. We look forward to their engagement today with the committee and the opportunity to hear directly from them on the effects of Troubles-related violence and on their work. There have been a number of recent ministerial engagements with victims and survivors. Most recently, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, met the WAVE Trauma Centre, the Pat Fincuane Centre, Relatives for Justice and the South East Fermanagh Foundation in Belfast on 7 January. I welcome the ongoing engagement. The format of the meeting is that I will invite Mr. McCord and then Dr. Peake to make an opening statement, which will be followed by questions from committee members. Each member will have between five and seven minutes to ask questions and for the witnesses to respond.

Before we begin, I remind members of the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. Members attending remotely must do so from within the precincts of Leinster House. This is due to the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the place where Parliament has chosen to sit.

In this regard, I ask members participating via MS Teams that prior to making their contributions, they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House complex.

Members and witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, I will direct them to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

As the witnesses will probably be aware, the committee will publish the opening statements on the Oireachtas website. MEPs participating from jurisdictions outside the State are advised that they should be mindful of their own domestic law and how it may apply to their participation in these proceedings.

I invite Mr. McCord and Dr. Peake to make their opening statements.

Before I begin, I take this opportunity to note that politicians from both sides of the Border signed a document for us in Belfast several years ago. I am led to believe that it was the first document signed by all the major political parties before and after partition, and was fully inclusive. I have brought a framed copy down to give the committee. I can give it to the members before we start or afterwards.

Mr. McCord can pass it around now.

On behalf of my family and those of all the victims, I thank the committee for inviting me to attend. The courts have largely failed us by consistently allowing 20 to 50 years of delays in many cases, including in the context of inquests as a result of state bodies withholding disclosure documents. My son, Raymond Jnr., was murdered on 9 November 1997 by UVF members who were proven to be agents working for the special branch department of the RUC and the PSNI as outlined in the report of the then Police Ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan, on 22 January 2007. For the first time during the Troubles, collusion between terrorists in the loyalist UVF, a proscribed organisation, and the special branch department of the RUC and the PSNI was proven. No action has been taken against these serial murderers because of their special branch handlers and very senior police officers refusing to bring murder charges against them. Special branch did what MI5 told it to do or not do.

On 30 August 2021, at Belfast City Hall, politicians from both sides of the Border signed a declaration drawn up by our cross-community group to reject the British Conservative Government's legacy Act proposals. I am led to believe that this was the only document to be signed by all the major political parties from both sides of the Border, before and after partition. At last, we all came together because of victims not giving up on fighting the Conservatives attempting to rewrite history by denying victims truth and justice through its appalling legacy Act.

The new legislative proposals will pervert the course of truth and justice, with one politician, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, deciding which disclosure documents will be made accessible to the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, ICRIR, and the courts. A single politician's decision, instead of the courts, will hide the extent of successive British Governments' and their agents' and security agencies' direct involvement in thousands of murders during the Troubles. Why is the Secretary of State so determined to use public interest immunity, PII, in this legislation? Truth holds the keys to inquests and investigations that lead to convictions, exposure and some form of possible closure for victims' families. It is not, according to the British Government, in the public interest to know that paid state agents like Scappaticci, Mark Haddock, IRA and loyalist paramilitaries carried out countless murders with immunity from prosecution in the courts.

Regarding the hidden truth of atrocities like Kingsmill, the Reavey brothers, the O'Dowd family, La Mon, the Shankill bombing, Omagh, the Birmingham pub bombings and Loughinisland, the list is endless. The number of individual murders, including that of my own son, Raymond Jnr., ran into the thousands. I must add the many attempts to murder me, including the use of a car bomb, which was done on the orders of the UVF chief of staff John "Bunter" Graham, who was exposed in the Dáil by former TD Pat Rabbitte as a Special Branch agent. The agents went up to the highest levels in the proscribed organisations, both republican and loyalist. The victims' families must always come first - not the blood-drenched hands of the state, its agents, the paramilitaries and some of the security forces. Democracy is under threat here and there is no shame from this government, only appeasement of MI5 and more legalising of cover-ups with this Bill. There can be no amnesties for murderers be they paramilitaries, agents or state security forces. A uniform is no reason for justifying murder. No one can be above the law. We need prosecutions with full disclosure, open courts and ongoing inquests without special advocates appointed by the state or the courts. Is the Secretary of State perverting the course of justice by hiding documents of his own choosing from the courts and justice system? How can there be robust and full legal investigations of murders or inquests if there is no full disclosure?

Do members believe that anybody involved in the proposals and structure of this legacy Bill can be believed? The UK Labour Party promised to scrap the Bill. At a victims' event at Ulster University in Belfast, I shared the platform with our former Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan, who stated to the audience that the ICRIR would have access to all disclosure documents. At a meeting in the British Embassy in Dublin in 2024, Hilary Benn was asked by Stephen Travers in front of ten people if the ICRIR would have access to documents hidden by the government using PII. Benn's reply was predictable - "absolutely not". Sir Declan Morgan told the audience at Ulster University that if documents were missing, he would send his staff to go and get them. Hilary Benn says that will not happen. We all know why. This Bill, which was drawn up with great influence and guidance from MI5, is nothing more than a follow-up to the Conservatives' Legacy Act and we reject it.

I ask Deputy Mary Lou McDonald and Gavin Robinson to agree to seek disclosure from republican and loyalist paramilitaries about the murders they carried out. Politicians need to forget orange and green politics and look upon victims as people - not as statistics of Protestants and Catholics. I would also draw the attention of the committee to the atrocity of the Birmingham pub bombings. Families had to raise funds to take to the courts. The bombings were not covered by the Good Friday Agreement. Why not? It appears to the families of Birmingham victims that both the British and Irish Governments are lacking in integrity and courage.

I ask this committee to support our initiative in bringing together young people from both sides of our communities, North and South of the Border, to listen to victims of the Troubles telling their stories. We have had a number of events at Oakgrove Integrated College in Derry with the help of its head teacher, John Harkin, who has supported me with these events.

Victims instead of politicians explain the pain and heartache of division and sectarianism. Does this committee not find it incredible it was even possible that unionists, nationalists and Irish and Northern Ireland politicians would stand together against the British Government in support of all our innocent victims? I believe that truth and justice bring us together irrespective of politics or religion. This committee has a choice of sitting on its hands or showing its continued support of the victims' families in rejecting this Bill, as the politicians from both sides of the Border did on 30 August 2021 in Belfast.

We will not accept half-truths. Like any parent, brother, sister, son or daughter, we want to know who murdered our loved ones whether the killers are agents or not. Our loved ones’ human rights were taken away from them by murder. Let us all make sure the families' human rights are not taken away by Labour's U-turn on truth and justice. Truth and justice do not come in green or orange labels; they come with support, respect and a victims-friendly Bill to those who suffered the most and continue to suffer today, namely, the victims and their families. Today, over 28 years since my son's murder and still with no inquest, I ask on behalf of my family, the Truth and Justice Movement and other victims - and we thank you all for being here today - for justice for Raymond Jnr. and all the victims. This was endorsed across community groups and individuals, such as myself and Kate Nash from Bloody Sunday, Julie Hambleton from the Birmingham bombing families, Billy McManus from Sean Graham bookies, Michael Gallagher from Omagh, John Taggart from Ballymurphy and Cathy McIlvenny from Shankill, whose sister was raped and murdered by the UDA, and her sister’s son - who was two at the time - who was murdered by the UVF 18 years later.

I thank Mr. McCord for that. We will have questions after Dr. Peake's opening statement.

Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here to contribute to the session this morning. We appreciate the role of the joint committee in considering issues arising from Ireland’s role as a signatory to the Good Friday Agreement and the ongoing developments regarding the implementation of the agreement. It is fair to say the issues facing victims and survivors of the Troubles, regardless of where they reside, remain a priority area of need as we approach the 28th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

WAVE was established in 1991 to provide therapeutic and support services across the community on an inclusive basis, regardless of religious, political or cultural belief or the circumstances of the incident. The need for support and therapeutic services remains as important today, as referrals over the past five years have exponentially grown, with over 1,200 people approaching WAVE last year for support. Some 60% of those were men, with the average age being in the mid-50s and referrals have been received from individuals from the ages of four to 98. A total of 20% of the referrals received relate to transgenerational issues.

Across the board, referrals have been received from not only Northern Ireland; they also have come from individuals living across Ireland, in Great Britain and further afield. There are three main reasons when you look at why referrals have come in. There was the impact of enforced isolation which came through Covid. People will say we are on the other side of Covid, however, that had a detrimental impact on mental health. When people were isolated, the memories and flashbacks of the past came back to the fore, and the past bit and it bit hard.

We then started to receive a lot more referrals. A 7% increase in referrals came from across the globe from people who had left these shores after being bereaved or injured and were living in New Zealand, Canada, the United States or Australia. That is one of the main reasons we have seen the deterioration in mental health having a longer term legacy.

The then British Government's 2023 legacy legislation had a detrimental effect on mental health. In March 2020, just as the isolation and restrictions during Covid came, there was a move away from the Stormont House Agreement by the Conservative Government. The subsequent direction of travel towards immunity and an amnesty caused fundamental harm, particularly to those bereaved. The state was in effect saying those who had died no longer mattered and their cases were no longer of concern to the state. That language, terminology and emphasis caused significant harm. It was retraumatising and referrals to WAVE increased substantially from those bereaved. The organisation received over 1,000 referrals from those bereaved, who had not accessed services previously, in an 18-month period. It was a very high level of referral. The Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, ICRIR, which was the product of that legislation, was and is deeply flawed.

Over the last eight years, we have worked closely with the Operation Kenova investigation team, who were focused on the actions of the agent called Stakeknife. I have worked with WAVE for over 30 years. To me and to others, this represented the best victim- and survivor-centred approach that I have witnessed for families because the families were at the centre of that process. We argue strongly that Operation Kenova was the blueprint for how families should receive answers and accountability in relation to their loved one's case. The test will now be how close the legacy commission will come to the standard set by Kenova. We also need to see an investigative process that is equal on both sides of the Border. The Border should not determine one getting a lesser investigative process than the other. This remains a fundamental need for victims and survivors today. It also represents the unfinished business of the Good Friday Agreement.

The third reason for increased referrals related to the creation and outworkings of the Troubles permanent disablement payment scheme, TPDPS, otherwise known as the injured pension. The WAVE injured group campaigned for 13 years for this pension, for recognition of those who had been severely and permanently injured, through no fault of their own, through the Troubles. Throughout the Troubles there was not just disability discrimination; there was also Troubles discrimination because people were not allowed back into work. They were unable to resume careers they had or work they were undertaking. Having a pension, therefore, was a way of ensuring that the legacy of the past for them was addressed in giving them dignity and a sense of ownership in relation to how they could live long term.

While that has been a positive scheme, it has also had many challenges. There have been long waiting times and it has been a difficult process for many applicants. The TPDPS was concentrated on the severely injured and not the bereaved, although some may be eligible. There is an inequity that now needs to be addressed. There is also an inequity across Ireland because it was set up by UK statute and applies to those born in the UK. We understand that 7% of the caseload of the Victims and Survivors Service who are classified as injured reside across Ireland and, therefore, those needs should be met. It remains an area of contention that a difference is being created with the TPDPS scheme due to the individual's place of birth and the location of the Troubles-related incident that caused the injury. For the bereaved, we believe strongly that a scheme such as this that focuses on the recognition of the loss rather than degrees of disablement, which is the central tenet of the assessment for the injured pension, must be created. This needs to be actioned on a cross-Border basis to ensure equity and equality regarding acknowledgement.

In the past, this committee has heard from the families of those who disappeared. In late 2025, a search for Columba McVeigh in Bragan Bog sadly ended. We once again commend the Irish and British Governments on their respective work and support for the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains, ICLVR. The work and success of this commission remains one of the success stories of the Good Friday Agreement.

It is, however, an information-led process and the ICLVR urgently needs further help as time is running out. The family members are getting older. A further drive to get the issue of the disappeared resolved for the families left behind is required and as ever, we appreciate this committee's support in keeping the issue of the disappeared to the fore. We urge members to remember those families and do what they can to ensure the issue of the disappeared is not forgotten.

Finally, we know so much more now about how the body holds a score in relation to trauma. This week we welcomed eight medical students from Queen's University Belfast to WAVE. They come in every year. They will analyse anonymised referral data from WAVE. They will also meet clients and hear their stories of how their health has been impacted. There is no doubt but that a wraparound victims and survivor-focused service is essential.

Last year the medical students looked at a range of areas. Victims and survivors of the Troubles engaged with WAVE were presenting with cardiac issues ten years earlier than our national average, which is poor. Clients were reporting significant gut issues and the students as a result looked at the link with long term antidepressant medication. Inflammatory conditions were also increased for victims and survivors while one third were experiencing high blood pressure, 57% social isolation, 82% anxiety and 68% sleep disturbance. The list of areas could go on.

Over the next month the medical students will study the data collected over the last year. We have six years of data and the patterns are clear. We need to acknowledge the health consequences of the past and do all that we can to prevent trauma being passed to the next generation because there is a health cost to it. The evidence is there of how, while clients may not speak about the past, it presents in diverse and detrimental ways in relation to their health. We need to acknowledge the pernicious nature of trauma and continue to provide services, trauma education and trauma awareness of how the past continues to present in the present. This is a central challenge for us all.

I thank the joint committee for facilitating me to speak with it this morning. As ever, we appreciate members' continued engagement across the community in considering issues arising from the Good Friday Agreement that still require attention. Victims and survivors’ issues are certainly one of those areas.

I thank Dr. Peake for that and Mr. McCord for his very personal recount. It is not easy, regardless of the passage of time. Dr. Peake's experience in WAVE has illustrated that for families. She has done that very eloquently this morning.

We are going to ask for questions from members of the committee. We will start with Deputy McCarthy who has between five and seven minutes for questions and answers from the witnesses.

I welcome the witnesses here this morning and thank them for their opening remarks. I sympathise with Mr. McCord for his loss and with all the victims who lost their lives and with their relatives. Mr. McCord outlined very well the grieving and ongoing concerns he has.

According to the witnesses' engagement with victims and survivors, what are the main unresolved needs today? Is it truth, justice, information or recognition? How has trauma evolved over time for families, particularly as legal avenues have narrowed?

When speaking about reconciliation regarding victims, we would ask: reconciliation with who? Victims do not need reconciliation at all; we are seeking truth and justice instead of the Government bringing legislation out. I spoke with many victims over the years. I met the parties and I came down to Dublin for the Sinn Féin Ard-Fheis as someone from the unionist community. I took a lot of flak from my own community.

There is so much to believe in. Politics should support victims, and the more politicians in Northern Ireland realise that, the better. When talking about these victims' issues, I feel more comfortable speaking to Dublin-based politicians, because when we do it back home, and we had this discussion earlier today, my experience of our politicians, particularly from the two major parties, is that it is a point-scoring exercise. It is simply about truth and justice. Some people are heard. We do not have sympathy for them. More needs to be done and it needs to be spoken about. I am talking about victims. The truth and justice system has failed victims, and to politicians, when we took it to Europe and the Conservatives in the English Parliament, because we went over and listened to them, one of the points that we made, maybe the strongest point, was that the system has failed victims. The courts have failed victims, but it is put across as if it is a victim's fault.

We want to go into courts today with full disclosure, and we understand there have to be redactions according to human rights law. The names of people involved or alleged to be involved have to be redacted, but the point is, it was not the victims that held courts up. It is 28 years since young Raymond’s death and there is no inquest. It was not us who held it up; it was state bodies. It was judges who did not show their authority and allowed the state to tell them to adjourn. With the Reavey case, there is an embargo of 80-odd years before the files can be opened. This is a democracy we are supposed to live in. That is another family. With Raymond's case it has been 28 years and the case has stopped. They brought a guillotine to it in May two years ago. Raymond's inquest was stopped by the judge even before the guillotine. What he said was he did not have the documents. That is not our family's fault. From the time these new legacy proposals came out, all the politicians from all the parties in Northern Ireland have been silent on truth and justice issues. They are being led to believe that the inquests and investigations are starting up again. Let us not kid ourselves or try to fool victims or members here. They will go nowhere until we get documents, the documents that the British Government will continue to withhold.

We are down here – I am down here – to ask members to support us. It is the only way forward. When we come together and ignore and forget about our political beliefs or turn around and say to forget about political beliefs, we forget about victims and truth and justice. It is as simple as that.

I thank Mr. McCord for answering that. It is concerning to hear about courts holding things up and documents not being released. It is frustrating for everybody. One of my questions, which Mr. McCord touched on, was what the consequences are of ending inquests and civil actions for families still seeking answers. Mr. McCord answered that in his statement. What more can we do as a Government to help push things forward? I know Mr. McCord outlined the witnesses are down here today to explain to us, but what more can the Government do to support them in their case?

I am glad the Deputy asked me that in case there is a breach of protocol. As the Chair knows, I am not a person known for diplomacy, to put it mildly.

I think that is a good thing at times. Maybe some people would say to themselves that I am a headcase. I do it because it is the only way. I cannot speak like a politician. I hope I am not offending the politicians here, and if I am, I do not mean to. If I am insulting or offending them and they criticise me, I am not going to fall out with them in any way. The only thing is that I will not be sending them Christmas cards or having a pint of Guinness with them.

On what members can do at the start, that draft I did was endorsed by victims from all communities. Members will see some of the signatures. Our signatures could be upon that. They were put on it to show it is completely cross-community - victims of the state, paramilitaries, agents, etc. I ask members today to do what the good people did at the City Hall in Belfast in 2021. I came prepared for it. I will not surprise members. The lines underneath it ask members to sign it and support us the way the politicians did before in Belfast. That made a big difference to us because of what it said. We came out of City Hall that day and all the cameras were scanning us out there. We carried that document out and we said we had got support north and south of the Border. The politicians, rather than going back to speak to their political leaders, knew it was the right thing to do and they signed it. Senator Mark Daly was the Speaker or the Chair of the Seanad. We sat along the top table in City Hall. Senator Daly was the first politician from down here. I asked him if he agreed with what was said on the document; members have a copy of it there. He said "Yes" and I said, "You won't mind signing it then," They all signed it. I suppose some were hesitant in doing it but they did the right thing. As I said before I came in, rules are there to be broken at times, but to be broken for the right reason. The right reason is doing what is right for the people that matter, the victims. Members can do that for us here today.

I thank the witnesses for answering the questions and I thank the Chair for letting me in.

I thank both Mr. McCord and Dr. Peake for coming and presenting to us this morning. It is good to see both of them again. I get and fully understand the frustrations Mr. McCord is expressing with the process. That sense of frustration is universal when you talk to victims' organisations, victims' families, individuals and the communities that have supported them. Part of that goes back to, as both Mr. McCord and Dr. Peake referred to in their opening remarks, the Stormont House Agreement. We could be ten or 11 years down the road with all-party support and the support of both Governments in dealing with this issue and here we are, back starting to go around the merry-go-round again in relation to it.

As part of that, there was a commitment from all the parties to use their influence to get people to come forward and interact with the truth and recovery mechanisms, including our own party, Sinn Féin. At the time, we would have encouraged republicans to do that, and that remains the case if we can get a viable truth and recovery process going as part of a broader package. The big regret for all of us and the witnesses in particular, who have been working at the coalface on this for many years, is that we did have that process back in 2014 but here we are, still with families getting older, loved ones of victims dying off and grandchildren now picking up the baton on behalf of families to try to carry these matters forward.

Clearly, the approach from the British Government at that stage was to kick this down the road for some period of time in order to develop a process clearly dominated by its own interests and in protection of its own agents and agencies. It brought forward that approach, which was, thankfully, universally rejected, as Mr. McCord said, by all of the parties North and South and by the Government here. The Labour Government approach, on the face of it, said it was going to revisit that and go back to the principles of Stormont House, and that approach was endorsed by the Government here. I think it was too early and alarm bells are already ringing in relation to that. The witnesses have mentioned some of them and I am sure other colleagues will pick up on others but I refer in particular to the amendments.

The Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, referred to what he called the "safeguards" that were designed specifically for veterans following close consultation with them. He stated this during the passage of the legislation in the House of Commons. That clearly separates out a particular section of people who were involved in this from all of the other people who were involved. Furthermore, as Mr. McCord outlined, the Secretary of State continues to have the power to withhold documentation and veto disclosure on national security grounds. This is in the context where the Secretary of State is going to the courts to stop Sean Brown's family and the Thompson family having inquests and accessing information. All of the early stages of this raise significant alarm bells. This is something that we must continue to keep a very close, watching eye on. I note that the Government here - I think it may have been the new Minister for foreign affairs - said that it had an agreed approach with the British Government and that the latter needs to hold that line. It is incumbent on the Government here to make sure that the expectation that was created in the context of the announcement of the legislation is met. The bottom line and the fundamental point is that all victims are entitled to have the right to Article 2-compliant investigations into the death of loved ones. The difference that alarmed some of us in relation to the Stormont House agreement was around the reference to an approach needed that is "compliant" with human rights whereas in this Government's approach the reference is to having "respect" to human rights, which is a weakness and undoubtedly, with all of the experience that the witnesses have outlined, it creates some level of concern.

We are happy to continue to support Mr. McCord, as we have done with all victims in pursuit of truth and justice. In terms of the support mechanisms Dr. Peake's group has outlined, the deeper study into trauma and intergenerational trauma, and in the context of where the NHS has been brought to by a lack of resources and support from the Government in London, how does Dr. Peake see those services holding up in the time ahead? They may become more and more necessary as there is a greater understanding of trauma and its effects, not just on immediate family members but right down through the generations coming behind.

There is no doubt but that there are issues in relation to demand outstripping resources and that is without question. Throughout two decades we averaged about 600 new people coming into WAVE that we had never met before. That has doubled and has not abated over time. However, it is fair to say that legacy is not being adequately and properly addressed, with families not in control and all of the issues that Mr. McCord highlighted around information not being available or being frustrated through the courts. That is for those families who have those processes which are publicly known but there are so many families who are dealing with this privately on an ongoing basis. That has a very detrimental effect on their health. We need legacy to be properly addressed. We need people to be freed from this. We need to acknowledge the fact that there has been a fundamental cost across the North of people living with the consequences of the trauma. That is not limited to the North because people are also living in the South, in Great Britain and elsewhere.

As anniversaries approach, we have seen deteriorating mental health and people really struggling in relation to what has happened here because the way we dealt with it in the North, as Senator Murphy knows, was with silence. People were concerned, they could not speak and felt they had to keep their head down and keep quiet. Intra-community conflict has been a huge issue. When a loved one is killed at the hands of your own community, it is a very different dynamic for families. We have families who continue to be sneered at, jeered at and smiled at by the people who took their loved ones. That is very hard for families to deal with and has a health consequence. We need to acknowledge the fact that legacy continues to have a big hold. We need to have it addressed and we need to have adequate service provision in place.

The NHS has a very clear role. I trained as a nurse and saw the pioneering surgery that went on in the Royal Victoria Hospital and the innovation that came from shooting incidents and bomb blast injuries. That is without question but nobody ever looked at the psychological consequences of that. We are now paying for the silence that was held within families. Families continued to be got at, intimidated and faced abuse. It was not over for them and that is what we need to get addressed. We work a lot with injured people and there is a very clear role for the NHS in relation to that. We have medical students in at the moment who will go into medicine in May.

We are trying to ensure that all trainee doctors are educated by victims and survivors of the Troubles. The General Medical Council, GMC, rated that as an area of notable practice. We are keen, as are they, for that to be replicated in other medical schools. We go into nurse education to ensure that all nurses are aware of the sensitivities because we have dealt with this through silence. Nurses might not be aware when people present of the underlying issues that cause many of the challenges. We also go into social work as well. We believe that ensuring that education and awareness right across society is key because the better and greater awareness we can bring to this then the more tools we can give families to understand that what they suffered was not abnormal but very normal given the abnormality of what we have come through, and continue to come through. That must be recognised.

I realise that I am out of time. There are a lot of other issues but I am sure my colleagues here can tease them out.

Of course, yes. There might be other rounds and I thank the Senator. I must apologise to Deputy McCarthy for referring to him as a Senator. Senator Comyn, please.

I thank the witnesses for coming here today. I can only imagine the trauma that they revisit when having to repeatedly tell their story so I thank them for that. Mr. McCord has done an incredible job of keeping his son's memory alive and seeking justice. I was working as a journalist with the BBC in Northern Ireland when his son was murdered. Each and every crime and murder does stand out in one's memory and even all these years later it does not become one or blend together. It is very difficult to hear that Mr. McCord is still trying to seek justice on his son's behalf. and we will do whatever we can to help with that.

I wish to commend Dr. Peake on WAVE's incredible work. I would like to understand how us, as a committee, can assist on both sides of the Border. It has been a real eye opener for me. I was working in Northern Ireland when the Good Friday Agreement was agreed and signed. I see it now as a living document but as it is not only about policy but also is about the human side of it, we really have to work closely with the witnesses to find out how we can help with that. Deputy McCarthy did begin to ask the witnesses what can we do and was given a great answer. I would like to dig down a little further to find out what specific actions that we and the Irish Government can do legally, diplomatically or politically in response to the legacy Act.

The Senator mentioned the Irish Government and again, we will forget about diplomacy. I have spoken to victims back home, and not just to Border ones, but to Michael Gallagher in Omagh and Julie Hambleton in Birmingham. The Irish Government has a lot of questions to answer about the murders. You speak with both communities on this issue. In Omagh, not just the two communities there, for every victim in Northern Ireland, the fact is that the victims see themselves, as I do, as one community. The debate should not be split up into so many Protestant victims, so many Catholic victims or whatever label. The Irish Government has very many questions to answer.

Can Mr. McCord be a little more specific?

That is no problem. They failed victims on the Border. The people who are heavily involved with Omagh have a strong belief that the Irish Government has failed to give answers. They believe that the Irish Government over the years, during the Troubles, allowed the Irish Republic to be a haven for republicans who committed murders and ran across and then, when extradition proceedings started, some of the courts gave reasons that they would not do it and said those concerned would not get a fair trial. We are not getting fair trials. We are not even getting any trials, thanks to the British Government.

I was talking about the Irish Government but every British Government from when the Troubles started has failed us for one reason after another. I was asked to be specific on it. We are seeing secret deals being done with paramilitaries from both sides, unbeknown to the victims. When it comes out, there is a big story in it and then the point scoring starts. They forget about the victims and their families. They try to score points against Sinn Féin or Sinn Féin scores points against the DUP. It has to stop and it should stop. We want to see those questions being answered by the Irish and British governments. This has to be done jointly. The people who suffered the worst in the Troubles were the victims. Whether the victims were from the Protestant community, the unionist community, or over in the mainland does not make any difference. We have all got the same treatment. We are only numbers. I am asking this committee to stop all these governments and political parties putting us in one basket with a wee number to each of us, because that is the way we have been dealt with. How can this be done? I emphasise again, and I have the documents here, sign it and support us. Show your political leaders that you are supporting these families. Dr. Peake's group are the experts in trauma. Make no mistake about it. I am no expert in trauma, although I like to give the paramilitaries as much trauma as I can for what they have caused us. Dr. Peake's group are the experts. They do great work. If somebody asks me for help regarding a victim's family, depression and all different forms of trauma, I tell them to go to the WAVE Trauma Centre.

I might switch over to Dr. Peake quickly. I am sure some of my other colleagues will delve deeper with Mr. McCord. Very quickly, how can the commission assist in advancing a fair, cross-Border approach to the recognition and support that the centre provides to trauma victims?

I think the difficulty is that there have been many false dawns. We can go back and look at successive processes to deal with the past and they have not succeeded. This one needs to succeed because we cannot keep doing this to families. We cannot keep bringing false dawns and not delivering. We need to get this one right and there needs to be equality on either side of the Border. I said this in terms of when I saw what Operation Kenova did. I had sat with some of these families who had RUC investigations, who had historic inquiry team investigations and who had taken their cases to the ombudsman. They found out through Operation Kenova information they had never found out before. They had a process that was essentially a victim- and survivor-driven process. People will criticise it and they will talk about the budget and about prosecutions. I will talk about the families. The response from the families was that it delivered. Why is it so important? When you talk to families, they will say that it gave them their parent back because it gave them the information. The difficulty is that if we do not have a proper legacy process, people will ride it out and they will protect their sources. They will say, "There is a source who says X,Y or Z about what happened to a person." That can be deeply traumatic for families and deeply inaccurate. We need to give families back control to know what did happen. We need to give them back control in relation to having a proper criminal justice process, which needs to be equal on both sides of the Border. We need to look at reparations for the bereaved. We need to recognise the bereaved. We need to recognise what has happened to them and we need to ensure that we address it fully.

What can the committee do? It is about continuing to hold firm in relation to a legacy process that is fit for purpose and that does not sell victims and survivors short, because all we are doing is pushing the issues down the track. Some 20% of our caseload today is transgenerational. That will increase. Is that fair? We have had the Good Friday Agreement. Is it fair to saddle the next generation with the injustice of the past? It needs to be addressed and we need to do that now.

I thank the witnesses for their incredibly powerful contributions today. I think Mr. McCord sells himself short. I think he is very diplomatic indeed. I do not think there is any lack in this regard.

I thank the Deputy.

It always strikes me when we hear from victims and survivors' groups that they are leading the way, although they are the group for whom it must be hardest to put aside politics, religion and colour and instead focus on the absolute push for truth and justice. They really do demonstrate what we as politicians and the broader general public need to do in getting behind the shared pursuit of truth and justice. It is the only way we will ever have any reconciliation on these islands.

It has always struck me how hard it is to listen to the championing of our peace process. I absolutely acknowledge the incredible work done to achieve the Good Friday Agreement, and the work that has been done since then, but it is hard to listen to it when we have not seen those prosecutions for extrajudicial killings. If we look at other conflicts around the world, for example in Colombia, we see the exact opposite. A central feature of the pursuit for reconciliation is bringing these killings to justice. I will begin with Mr McCord on this. Is this hard for him? When he hears the narrative that we have such a successful peace process, how does it sit with victims and families?

The justice system is part of a British Government process, as we said earlier, since 1969. During the Troubles there has been hiding of the truth. People speak about the truth as though it only has to do with the courts but it is beyond this. It is about agents working and carrying out murders while wearing the uniform of the British Army. I come from a strong unionist family. My grandfathers and my father fought in the two world wars. They did not fight for Protestants or the unionist community. They fought for everybody, as did people from the Catholic community who joined. The uniform cannot be an excuse or a reason for no prosecutions.

The Deputy made a point on different parts of the world where we see justice and people being tried. People seem to ignore the fact that a lot of murders carried out in Northern Ireland during the Troubles were actually war crimes. This is another way to deal with it. The Government could be brought to court for war crimes, as could the people who carried them out. I do not know what way the law works and I am not into the technicalities. It is just the harsh facts. It does not seem to be going anywhere.

I have come down here several times and I have met different people and not only at the committee. The committee was fantastic then. We came away with the positive thought that those people listened to us and asked us good questions. They did not try to embarrass us by asking what about our community. This has been the difference coming down here. It is not just about the committee as we need the political leaders here to turn around. I am not being disrespectful; I am saying how I feel. The Deputy heard me ask Deputy Mary Lou McDonald to go to speak to republicans to see about disclosure. I will not break a confidence but I have spoken to republicans in Northern Ireland in trying to get answers for victims of the IRA, particularly Kingsmill. I am hoping; whether or not I get them I will not stop trying. I did not say it to the families because I did not want to give them hope. This has been a problem for us. I am sure it is the same for the other witnesses in having to deal with people in trauma. Every time families have had false dawns. All we have ever had is false dawns.

It must be so hard to believe it will ever happen. My next question is for Dr. Peake and I want to pick up on some of the questions she previously answered on Operation Kenova. I also have a specific question on pensions. I get that Operation Kenova worked well. Would Dr. Peake say it mirrors the provisions of Article 2 of the ECHR on access to justice?

Is that why it is positive or was that conscious? Second, will the witnesses provide more details on the pension entitlements and whether the Government should set up something similar?

Kenova worked because it put victims and survivors at the centre. They came with no trust or confidence. The team came from outside of Northern Ireland. That is really important. There was more scepticism because they came from outside, including people like Jon Boutcher and others. Many concluded that he was an English copper who would protect his own and therefore would not deliver. The team was viewed with scepticism as well. Families’ confidence in them was very low at the start. We have many families. Over the years, people have come to WAVE because of how we work and the inclusive nature of our work. Within 18 months, we saw confidence rise. It rose because they could see that their loved one mattered. They mattered in life; they matter in death. There is saying that, "To heal the soul, we need to heal the dead." The dead were not healed. For some of those families, because it was inter-community conflict and their family members had been labelled, they had taken a lot of grief within the community. In fact, some of them continue to take grief within their community. That was extremely difficult.

Did they have trust in anyone? The answer is "No." They had trust in the team because it treated them as people and with humanity. It put them at the centre of the process. It treated them fairly and with equity and compassion. They never had that before. When they asked questions, they were told, "We cannot give you that now, but we will come back when we can." If it could, the team answered those questions. There was also an aspect where for some people they discovered that investigations were more comprehensive than they thought. They had no awareness of it at the time, or they discovered information that they never had that changed their outlook. Was it deeply traumatic? Of course, it was. Was it difficult to deal with? Of course, it was. The reality was that when I talked and worked with families, they viewed that process as being important for them. People focus on prosecutions. Families do not think there will be loads of prosecutions. That is often used as a myth and a way of saying, "We are going to be flooded with prosecutions. It will not happen." The reality is that people do not think there will be prosecutions, but they expect there will be a proper investigation and if people can be held to account, they will be. They want to know that every avenue has been looked at. The difficulty for many families is they felt that they have not had that before.

Going back to the Deputy's question to Mr. McCord, there are successes out of the Good Friday Agreement. The disappeared commission is a success. We used to be dealing with children who were bereaved. We were seeing them within six weeks after the death of their father, brother or mother. We are not seeing those. That is good. However, we still have paramilitaries operating within the community. We still have paramilitaries inflicting violence within the community. We still have families suffering. It is wrong that 28 years on as we approach the Good Friday Agreement anniversary that we are still seeing that across our community. That is very difficult when families are impacted, violence is internalised within the community and that families suffer because of it.

I have sat through many processes and many families. I saw Kenova as how legacy should be dealt with, but the Government does not want that. Therefore, the caveats were put around it to ensure that would not happen.

I thank Dr. Peake. I apologise for going over time.

I thank the witnesses for their contributions. It is proper that victims and the families should be at the centre. On the legacy of the Troubles joint framework document that was launched by the Tánaiste and Mr. Hilary Benn MP in September, what are Dr. Peake's views on that as a new document? Mr. McCord can also give his views. Have the witnesses looked at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's studies in South Africa? Are there pros? What happened there that could be transferred across? Are there negatives? If the witnesses have examined this, is that something we could look at for victims here?

The process relating to the role the Irish Government took is very welcome. The interstate case then followed in the context of coming together on the joint framework. We have been very clear that families deserve the best and should receive the best and that, as a result, the processes that should be in place should put families at the centre of things. We will always argue that this should be a Kenova process, which is a criminal justice investigation, because that is how families received a high level of information and a process that met their needs. We are concerned, as the legislation moves through, that there will be changes to that. We want that process to be very clearly Article 2 compliant and to follow in terms of having the various legal protections in place for families.

One of the early documents - it emerged in 2020 - referred to South Africa. When we look at the workings of the truth commission there, however, what happened was not always satisfactory for the families. In fact, there has been a full-scale circling back whereby prosecutions are now being pursued. We need to have a process. That is why this opportunity needs to be taken. It needs to be taken now in order that we deliver for families and we free them from having to continue to fight for the past. We must also free them in the context of allowing them to say their loved ones' deaths have been properly investigated, properly addressed and if accountability is necessary, that can happen. That is why the joint framework is really important. I would not concentrate on South Africa. We have our own set of unique circumstances here and we need to address this matter in our own unique way. It needs to be an all-Ireland solution because people either side of the Border deserve equal treatment.

We do not need to go to South Africa for a resolution. We have good people on both sides of the Border. This is an important issue, but the resolution is simple; it is what victims want. They bring all these agreements out, such as the Stormont House Agreement, the Sunningdale Agreement and the Good Friday Agreement. I actually fought against the Good Friday Agreement. The reason I did so was not because I did not want peace; it was because the victims were not consulted. Negotiations were carried out by political parties and by gangsters and murderers from both communities. They went to prisons and spoke with prisoners. They spoke to families. I live six doors away from a police station. No cop ever came to my door to ask what I thought of the Good Friday Agreement or what I would like to be done.

I do not read the documents or the agreements because they are a waste of time. The last time the Conservative Government fell, I was talking to a senior republican about this. He referred to the Stormont House Agreement. I told him I had never read it. We have had so many agreements in the history of the Troubles. Those agreements never involved consultation with the people who matter, namely the victims and their families. We have had academics in Belfast, from Queen's University Belfast and other places, and in the Seanad down here speaking about this matter. The drafted documents and presented them. The Governments encouraged them and paid them to draft something, but there was no consultation with victims. If you are going to draft documents down here in Dublin or up in Belfast, the priority must be the victims' opinions. That is where I will leave it.

I thank Mr. McCord.

I thank Dr. Peake and Mr. McCord for their presentations, for attending and for their contributions to this discussion. It is essential that this committee continues to maintain a focus on issues pertaining to the legacy of the conflict and on how we move forward. We have heard quite emphatically today that trauma is not a historical issue.

It is intergenerational. We also heard that trauma is exacerbated by the lack of a viable resolution to the issues we are discussing.

On the framework and the legacy Bill, the stated objective is to rebuild trust between the two islands and between the communities that live on both. A clear example of that would be the establishment of an independent inquiry into the murder of Sean Brown.

I would like to tease out a couple of specifics regarding the current legacy legislation, and I would like to hear the witnesses' views in this regard. Following our engagement with victims and with communities in relation to all of these matters, it is obvious that the fundamental right to full access or access to a fully compliant Article 2 investigation into the murder of a loved one is absolute. It is quite clear from developments since the framework document was produced, including the presentation of the legislation and the initial stages of the legislative process in Westminster, that there is a desire to provide preferential treatment for one cohort in the context of all this. Special provisions and protections for veterans are writ large across the discussion at this time. That should be a cause for alarm for anybody interested in truth and justice.

One of the protections in this regard the protection from repeated investigation. In the context of known historical investigations that were not Article 2 compliant, the notion of giving protection to certain individuals from investigation obviously presents a challenge. There are also provisions to retrospectively legalise what was historically illegal. These specifically relate to interim custody orders. That is a severe act of bad faith because it was not referenced in the framework document or in discussions with the Northern Irish or British Governments. It is this sort of dilution, from the framework document to the legislation, that gives rise to particular concern. It is something the Irish Government has to be wise to and monitor throughout the legislative process.

Mr. McCord focused heavily on the role of the Secretary of State and the political patronage and overwhelming authority he will exercise through these processes if they are implemented in full, including the veto of disclosure to both the ICRIR and the new legacy commission. He will also have the power to make regulations and provide guidance to the process and to appoint all key individuals to the new mechanisms. The Liberal Democrats' spokesperson on the North of Ireland in the House of Commons said, "When one person controls both the commission's leadership and its advisory body, independence is difficult to discern."

As Senator Murphy pointed out, we also have issues such as the obvious slip on the fundamental adherence to human rights from obligations being complied with to human rights being respected. We have gone from the former, in the Stormont House Agreement, to the latter, in the legacy legislation, which is both an obvious step back and a cause for concern.

This process has to be monitored carefully, especially given our experiences of past initiatives in respect of this matter. All actors have to be diligent, especially those in the victim sector, as well as the Irish Government in its role as co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement. It must maintain its commitment to retaining the European challenge until the end of the process.

I have a final question on trauma services. It is for Dr. Peake. Much of our work hitherto in this committee has been on exploring avenues of all-Ireland collaboration in the field of healthcare. Dr. Peake has identified gaps in terms of the provision of services, North and South, and access to recourse for victims of the conflict. Are there any obvious avenues for collaboration in the field of trauma, both in identifying treatment and preventing future trauma? I am curious to know if the Queen's University medic initiative could be replicated by third level institutions in the Twenty-six Counties.

One of the largest issues is around independence and governance and ensuring trust and accountability. That is why Kenova was so important in the context of having independence, accountability and trust. We have been very vocal when it comes to making representations in respect of what families need and stating that this must be at the heart of any process in terms of trust and accountability.

With regard to where there are gaps, we deliver a trauma education arm. We believe that a trauma-informed society is essential. We reach out in the context of that trauma education by delivering a degree in conjunction with Queen's University, a range of short courses and a master's degree in conjunction with University College Cork. That is very important because it is 100% online. It opens up education right across Ireland, which is really important. It is taught by people who come with a vast array of experience. I refer, for example, to my colleague Dr. Paul Gallagher.

He was injured in the Troubles, so he has personal experience but also a huge wealth of academic experience. That is really important in relation to the master's in trauma studies. Mr. Hughes is right in relation to the wider issues because people have left and moved away and we need to ensure the trauma education is shared. We are looking forward to welcoming our first student from Trinity in medicine. We are very keen to reach out right across in relation to the various health professional bodies to ensure that. When I trained as a nurse, I was always very struck that we looked at the care of every ethnic minority who might come across our path as nurses, but we never looked at the fact that most nurses were coming in from divided education, so they had no understanding of the other. We never looked at the fact that we were delivering healthcare within a conflict setting, so it was delivered the same as it was delivered in Edinburgh, London or wherever. Yet, there were very fundamental issues in relation to the experience of victims and survivors, but also the experience for those delivering healthcare in relation to what they witnessed and were exposed to in the course of that. The more we do to build resilience but also trauma awareness right across, the better. Trauma shapes our society. Obviously, we have learned from the Troubles but the reality is that it is applicable to a whole range of other areas. We would be delighted to link and network.

In terms of the master's, when we plotted where students came from, they came from right across Ireland, working in all different areas of trauma, but they also came from across the world. People had been working within India or had left Gaza and were living in other areas or indeed were in the United States. Using and sharing that expertise is really important and that is what we are keen to do. We are keen to share the resources and share the models of practice that we have built up.

I welcome the witnesses back to the committee. First, I want to acknowledge the loss of Raymond Jnr. and all the other victims the witnesses have spoken about today. The work the WAVE Trauma Centre does for families and for communities of victims of the Troubles cannot be overstated or overestimated. We visited the centre two years ago. I learned so much from everyone there that evening. As a committee, we should engage more because we can all learn from it.

Mr. McCord has said repeatedly at this committee and elsewhere that he has been let down continuously by both jurisdictions in so many ways. Dr. Peake referred to the repeated false dawns. Mr. McCord noted the lack of an inquest into the death of his son and other people. There is a continuation of this. When we think about the legacy Act, it is so disappointing that one issue on which there was unification across every single party on the island and every community was that we were against the legacy Act. They failed to even listen when the island was singing with one voice and they failed to hear that.

A lot has been said, and the witnesses coming here and us repeating over and over again the trauma and the gaps is all well and good. As a committee, with the agreement of the Chair and other members, I suggest we should reaffirm the committee's collective opposition to the UK legacy Act. Perhaps we could write to our Minister for foreign affairs to ask for an update on what the Irish Government is doing. We could also perhaps invite in some members of the UK Government for direct engagement.

We have had informal committee meetings with UK Government representatives on issues like this. When Hilary Benn was in opposition, he met with us informally as well. It has been very important for this committee to offer invitations to those people to reappear before us privately or publicly so we can get those serious issues addressed with them as a committee.

Dr. Peake spoke about pensions. Maybe this committee also could discuss that with our foreign Minister, our public expenditure Minister and our social protection Minister to see that there is not inequity among victims. We have to pull up our socks in the Republic in relation to looking after victims also. With the indulgence of the committee, maybe we could discuss that at a private meeting.

As regards those actions, what else would the witnesses like us to do as a committee? There will be, I imagine, a collective voice here in support of them and in support of answers. It is a failure of the Good Friday Agreement that there was not a legacy aspect to it. Maybe it is a reflection of the times they were in that they wanted to put together this agreement and deal with the rest afterwards, but we did not deal with it. As a committee, what are the witnesses' asks of us and our follow-up to this engagement? That is what matters, our actions after this, because we can talk all we want.

I will answer that. While I am doing so, could I give Deputy Shane Moynihan a photograph? The members will see what it is. I ask them to pass it around. They will understand that this involves not just my son but a lot of other ones. I ask Deputy Moynihan to pass the photograph on to the others. How do you deal with trauma on that? Three times that happened, by the way. What else can be done? For victims, Dr. Peake spoke very well about the resources. We need more resources, obviously. There are three sides to this. There is the trauma side, the health side and the truth and justice side. What more can be done? We are so grateful to have got the opportunity to come down again. As to what I would like to see in the Dáil, I think before Bill Clinton spoke in the Dáil, I remember being in Washington meeting George Bush and other people. I wish it had been somebody else's father meeting him. If Bill Clinton can come to Ireland, to Dublin, to speak in the Dáil, other people can do it. It is time the Irish Government said, "We need victims to speak in the Dáil." I do not understand the rules or the regulations of that, but if it was an exception that was made for Bill Clinton, what is more important to all the people who sit in the Dáil and in the Seanad - a President coming to speak in the Dáil or victims who still have not got truth or justice? I know what my answer would be and I know what that of a lot of politicians whom I speak to privately would be. For them it is first and foremost victims coming in. Down here in the Republic, we have been to the Seanad. We are treated well in the Seanad and by Mark Daly and the rest of the Senators. Two politicians from Dublin here who have really excelled themselves and stood with victims have been Mark Daly and Emer Currie.

I say to people in Belfast that Emer Currie has done such great work with us and for us. I am not into politics but if I was picking somebody to be the next Taoiseach, the first female, it would be Emer every day of the week because of the work that she does. That is not being disrespectful; it is being honest.

There needs to be more done in the Irish Parliament building with regard to victims. Members have got to give them a voice here. If they are going to invite Hilary Benn over for a debate, what victims are in the debate? That is not to give abuse. He would say the "reasons" for it; we would say the "excuses" for it. He cannot justify not getting truth and justice but he is trying to do it with this Bill. Have victims there when Hilary Benn is sitting there. If it was me, I would let the people sitting in the room be the judges of it. If it is on TV, I would let people be the judges of it. If the committee does it, bring in a couple of young people of 16 years of age from both communities in Northern Ireland and get their voices into it as well. They are the future voters. They are the people who are going to have to fight and battle with these people after we are long gone. Bring more people into it. The most important thing for victims is to have their voices heard.

I try to make this point a lot of times. We see Hilary Benn saying that he consulted victims. He consulted groups. The vast majority of victims in Northern Ireland or the North of Ireland - whatever label people want to put on it, it makes no difference - do not belong to groups. The group we have is a sort of semi-group. We set it up not in an official way but to show that cross-community work with victims does work. Most victims' organisations fighting for truth and justice are labelled "unionist" or "nationalist". These people here are just victims. Get their voices in the Irish Parliament because it is quite clear that the British Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly will not have them. They tell us what we want to hear or what they believe we want to hear and we walk out of Stormont and it is forgotten about then - all the broken promises. I would like to see people here do it better.

I thank Mr. McCord for that. Does Mr. Godfrey want to come in on this, briefly, if he does not mind?

I wish to make a general point about where the British Government currently sits. I will declare an interest; I am a member of the UK Labour Party so I look at it very closely. It has got a big majority but it is a very thin majority. Most of the Labour MPs who are backbenchers came in in 2024 and have no working knowledge, even of the peace process. George Howarth and Maria Eagle are probably the only two remaining. When the committee asks if there is more it can do, government-to-government is obviously very important and we know things work well when the two Governments work closely together but there is a big education programme needed beyond that. I am not sure what the structure would be but I would like to think there is a role to be played there. There is no doubt that the veterans form one of the constituencies who have got an interest in legacy. Of course they have but that veterans' lobby is now huge. It is working in every constituency and there is a huge amount of money behind it. Labour MPs who have no working knowledge of this are coming up and asking what this legislation is about because their inboxes are filled with people saying that 80-year-old soldiers are going to go to prison. They are asking what this is about and they are, frankly, quite anxious about it. If there is time, a broader education process is needed, for example, through Irish community groups within constituencies. Somehow we have got to rebalance that and at the moment, it is not happening.

I thank Mr. Godfrey for that. Our next questioner is Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh.

I thank everyone for being here. I thank Mr. McCord for being here and I hope that the day will come when he does not need to be here except maybe in an education forum.

I only have a couple of questions because a lot of my questions have already been asked. The witnesses met the Secretary of State before the release of the joint framework. Does the joint framework reflect the discussion and the asks by the witnesses? Does it lend itself to amendments? Please talk to me a bit about it.

We met Hilary Benn in Belfast. It was me, the solicitor Paul Farrell, Cathy McIlvenny from the Shankill, and Hugh McCormick from the Short Strand, who was shot eight times by the IRA and is a community activist.

Hilary Benn sat next to me. For me, it was to talk about my son and then the legislation he was bringing out. There was no discussion really relating to the legislation. He said that he met with victims. I know very few of the victims who actually met him to be honest. That showed the interest he had in victims. This point that I am going to make will highlight the hypocrisy of it all. I raised with him, and we all made it clear, that we reject the Bill because they told us they were going to scrap it. They did not scrap it but tweaked it and made it stronger against victims with the method of a PII and how they were going to enforce it. I mentioned to him the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland's report in 2007 where collusion was proven. It was Tony Blair's Government at the time and the day the report came out Tony Blair accepted it. I mentioned that collusion was mentioned in the report. I suggest that everyone here reads Nuala O'Loan's report because it does not just deal with the case of my son, young Raymond. The report is more important as it deals with a lot of victims of that unit. When I mentioned the report to Hilary Benn he had never heard of it. The Secretary of State, when trying to enforce a Bill upon victims, had never heard of Nuala O'Loan's report. What does that say about the man and the homework he had done regarding victims? A report was published that stated collusion was proven yet the Secretary of State is trying to convince us that joint framework is a magic wand for victims and members of this committee can guess my opinion of the framework.

Is McCord saying that the framework, as presented, does not lend itself in any way to amendments or anything?

Scrap the Bill.

I think it is important to say that here today.

There is a room of victims sitting here and they will say that.

Yes.

They will say, relating to the Good Friday Agreement, how the politicians all sat in Stormont overnight and made a deal. It is a deal that is not beneficial. It stopped a lot more murders but I voted against it because the paramilitaries within my own community would not go away and more murders would continue. I said that I hoped they would prove me wrong but, unfortunately, that was not the case. The Bill needs to be scrapped because it will obviously lead to legal court challenges and more expenses, time and trauma inflicted on victims and their families. Once these actions start then nothing is surer than that before they finish, some victims' families who bring claims are going to die. Benn and these people sitting in Westminster, including our own politicians from both communities who sit in Westminster and Stormont, do not give a damn about a lot of victims. The only things they are concerned about is their own pocket, the power that comes with that and their own ego. I urge those politicians to start doing things for the voters and the victims. That has not happened so scrap this Bill.

How important does Mr. McCord think it is that the interstate case is left on the table?

When that came out I supported it and a lot of people, including unionist politicians, asked "Who do they think they are, the Irish Government, coming up with this?" This is not about just the Irish Government.

Bring them to an independent court. We have been over in the EU, showing our cross-community film. We get good support in Europe. We got better support in Europe than from Stormont Assembly politicians. We can talk all day about this at this point. Victims want the Bill treated the way it was promised to us. Scrap it, and let victims put the proposals to parliament, not the politicians.

Meanwhile, leave the interstate case on the table.

Leave it there.

What people here identify with in the main – and we cannot even hope to understand what it was like for people living in the North - is inquests. We do understand the importance of inquests. I cannot find a word to describe families are waiting for decades for inquests is just.

I was very struck by what Dr. Peake said, and I commend her and WAVE on all of the work they do. She that the legacy not being properly addressed is often detrimental to victims' mental health, and she has demonstrated the affect on physical health as well, which is extremely important. They need to be free from this. That is very important. Does she wish to speak to that?

Absolutely, because what we will do and are doing is to hand it to the next generation. I understand Mr. McCord's point, because when they have had so many false dawns in terms of the landscape changing, and what they expect to be delivered and not delivered, and when they have been brought and think they are going to have a process and then do not have a process, how then do they trust any process? My concern is that where there is a time issue with this, families have waited for too long and if we start again, I would have some concerns about what are we starting again to do. We had the Stormont House Agreement on the table. We had proposals prior to that, and each of them have not worked. When I said I endorsed fully Operation Kenova, because I saw it delivering for families; that is what I would like to see delivered.

In terms of the true spirit of what Operation Kenova did with full criminal justice investigations for families, that is what gave them a full process in relation to that. I am concerned about where that is at.

When we look back at the Good Friday Agreement and think about what would we have done and if we were agreeing the Good Friday Agreement now, what should be there? There should have been a very clear process to address the legacy. Some 28 years on, the fact we have not had that is not sufficient, and we have let families down. We need to ensure this committee is standing with people, hearing from them and endorsing processes. It is really important that people are not let down because too many people over the years have been silent, and that should not happen.

The second thing if we were doing a Good Friday Agreement again, is early release of prisoners. For the families of the disappeared, there was no early release. Some 28 years on we are still searching for the disappeared in bogland across Ireland. That is unacceptable. Some 20 years on we still have Robert Nairac buried somewhere. He should be returned to his family in England. We should have the other cases returned to their families, and they should be allowed to lay them to rest. If we were looking at doing the Good Friday Agreement again, the issue of the disappeared would need to be addressed. We did not bring in a proper recognition process for the bereaved; that should have been there. We did not bring in a process for the injured. We have delivered on that, but there is an inequity in Ireland, and it is an inequity I would like that the committee look at.

On the place of birth, there are two individuals affected by a bomb explosion. Because one has a UK passport or was born in the UK and the other has an Irish passport, the person with the Irish passport cannot receive anything. That is wrong, and we need to address that. We should not have a process that does not address that. From the committee's perspective, I urge members to keep legacy issues very much to the forefront. Victims' and survivors' issues remain a key part of the Good Friday Agreement that has not been fully addressed. We need to get that right. I urge the committee to continue to exert influence and do whatever it can to ensure we get a process that works. The Secretary of State has indicated he has listened. We have obviously dealt with the Taoiseach and Tánaiste and again, they have, through the joint proposals, said that they will ensure the process is robust.

We need to get it right and that is what we need to do now.

I thank Mr. McCord in particular for sharing his story again. I am sure he has done this a lot over the past 30 years and I imagine it takes a huge emotional toll every time he has to do it. While we are here talking about a particular remit, all of the conversations we are having around unresolved legacy and the failure of peace agreements to include the voices of the victims and their families, it makes me think of the peace agreements that we look to today and in the future. Often the Irish Government looks back and talks about the Northern Ireland peace process and the Good Friday Agreement as a success and in many ways, it was. It brought peace but there is the idea of peace at all costs, or peace at the exclusion of victims or of women, who are often very specific victims during conflict. There are so many learnings for us when we talk about sustainable peace going forward in all of these other peace processes that we look to. While there were great successes in the North, there were also failures in the Good Friday Agreement and we see the pain that continues to cause to victims' families and the wider communities. There is unfortunately an urgency now because of the passage of time and the desire for victims' families to get justice in their lifetime. This should never have happened in the first place and that should have been built into it. I appreciate that the witnesses are here to have these conversations around what we can do about that. I recognise the whole piece around education and how important it is to educate the new cohort of MPs in Westminster but frankly, we need that education down here too for people in the Oireachtas and communities in the South who are less connected to what happened in the North. There is a complete disjoint. People look at what happened in the North as something that happened in the past and there is a failure to see the ongoing pain and suffering of individual families and communities more broadly.

I am quite concerned about the idea that we will no longer be compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights but are just going to take it into account. The ECHR was so important in the Good Friday Agreement. Communities that might have had differences with each other and that did not agree on a lot of things had a framework that existed outside of all jurisdictions associated with the conflict that they could rely on and trust and to which they all knew they could go to for justice. The fact that the UK Government is not actually committing to compliance is really terrifying to me. We are also seeing the Government down here chipping away and considering signing off from some elements of the ECHR. A discussion around that happened in Strasbourg in November. This is something that we need to consider and protect going forward.

We have talked about the new legacy framework and its failures in the UK but I would like to hear a little more from the witnesses on the failure to have any kind of historical investigations unit down here and what that means for families. It is very easy for us to sit here and criticise the UK Government and its failures but has the Irish Government done enough?

Regarding justice issues and murders during the Troubles, successive Irish Governments have done nothing. Let us call a spade a spade: they have done nothing. Victims have no confidence in them for what they have done over the years. We still have to come down here and push them to do something. Criticism, particularly around the victims, is often a good thing because it brings home the reality of their failures. For them, it is a case of the Troubles are in the North, in the Six Counties or Northern Ireland and are not really their problem. The way it comes across in Belfast, in the early days people from the nationalist community thought that the Irish Government would help them, and I understand that, whereas people from the unionist community saw them as people who were supporting republican terrorists.

Most of those thoughts could have been taken away. The Irish Government had plans in place to support victims from both communities, and not just to support them but to do things for them. This is an opportunity for it to do something. I think it was Simon Harris in the Irish Government who talked about the agreement it has with the British Government. In having an agreement with the British Government, I would like to think the Irish Government would say, "We have an agreement with the victims first and foremost." That is the best way I can answer that.

Does Dr. Peake wish to answer?

Over time, when you talk to individuals, they feel they have been failed by investigative processes. This does not just apply to the North, it also applies to families residing right across Ireland or when we look at the Dublin-Monaghan families and others who have been impacted. We have also dealt a lot with increased families who have been bereaved across Great Britain and equally, they have not had investigative processes. Mr. McCord highlighted the Birmingham families who have had to raise funding to get court cases and to fight tooth and nail. That is unacceptable. It is unacceptable that we have inequity right across. It highlights why we need a robust legacy process that is compliant with Article 2. It does not matter where you reside or how you have been impacted; if you want to avail of that, it should be there for you.

One of the big concerns we have regarding processes to date is it should be victim and survivor-centred, where it is the individual who makes determinations. For example, we have talked about ICRIR and the current commission and our challenges. One of the issues we have had around that has been with the governance and independence of it, but also the fact it should be victim- and survivor-centred, with the families at the core. For example, there was an indication during the summer that all questions families asked would be publicly shared. That should not be the case. We have a very strong issue around intercommunity conflict and that could be very dangerous for families.

We understand there will be changes but essentially, in the legacy legislation, we would like families to be the determiner of whether the report is made public. Some families may not want to share it and should be given that right. The processes need to be right for victims and survivors and we need to deliver for them fully. There are fundamental issues around reconciliation in terms of its use. If the Senator is happy, I will refer to Mr. Godfrey on that.

One of the aspects of the joint framework - this is reflected to a certain extent in the legislation - is that it links victims and survivors and their issues with reconciliation. Frankly, I do not know what reconciliation means. Clearly, the legislators do not know either because they have made no attempt to define it. I am not sure theological concepts should be put into legislation that is there to provide a practical resource for victims and survivors to seek truth and justice or information or whatever. To put reconciliation into that space is really putting the onus on victims and survivors to do the heavy lifting for the rest us who are not victims or survivors. That is not right. In fact, it is almost dangerous because you are getting very close to victim-blaming, or suggesting that the victims are the impediment to us all moving forward.

I have come relatively recently to this space. Obviously, Dr. Peake and Mr. McCord have been doing this for a generation and more. There has always been a chorus running under this that it is time to move on and we are 27 years after the Good Friday Agreement. I can tell you that from the time I have been away, for about 12 years or so, I have not met people who have moved on more than the victims and survivors. I am talking about people with catastrophic physical injuries and people who have been bereaved, who can still share a joke and get along. They have moved on, but we cannot ask them to move out of the way and that is increasingly what has been happening.

They are not the impediment to us making progress and we have got to recognise that.

That is why I understand Mr. McCord's point about this legislation. There have been so many false dawns, as Dr. Peake has referred to. This legislation might work, but there is still a lot of work to be done with it. Please, do not link our future and the future of our children and grandchildren to victims and survivors doing the heavy lifting for us.

This legislation definitely will not work. People have their own opinions. I would love to be sitting here saying that this is great and is going to work, but it will not work. Regarding the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a three-day event was held at Queen's University. Not one victim was on the platform during those three days. Dignitaries, academics, high-flyers and people who have never spoken to us in their lives were brought onto the platform. People contacted me to ask if they should go. I took it in good faith that they would be able to ask questions from the audience. I spoke to victims and told them to go because they would get our point across. It was three days of celebrating and people coming over, such as Hillary and Bill Clinton and George Mitchell. Everyone was there - the great and the good - to celebrate the Good Friday Agreement except victims and victims' voices. That said it all.

We have to briefly move on. I thank Dr. Godfrey for making that point and the whole point around being expected to move on or move out of the way. It is important for us all to reflect on that. As time passes, there will be an increasing pressure on victims and their families to move on or move out of the way. I am sorry that groups like the Wave Trauma Centre and other victims' advocacy groups are forced to be the ones responsible for keeping that voice alive. It should not be the way. It is very time consuming and emotionally draining. All these false dawns are highly retraumatising every time that the witnesses are obligated to go through these processes. I hope as a committee we will do our best over the next term to avoid them being the lone bearers of this responsibility.

I thank Mr. McCord, Dr. Peake, Mr. Godfrey and Mr. Sullivan for their attendance and participation. It has been fascinating to listen to their accounts. Our job as a committee is to try to build a better future and learn from the mistakes of the past while not being overly focused on blaming those who were involved. We seek to strike the balance between doing that and not overlooking the atrocities of the past. As Senator Stephenson said, this is important if we are to build a better and brighter future. It is not a peace-at-all-costs approach. If we are to achieve true reconciliation, we need to acknowledge the atrocities of the past. If victims are to have confidence in our political and demographic systems as well our legal systems, it is important that truth and justice are arrived at.

I sympathise with Mr. McCord on the passing of his son and I commend him on the huge efforts he has put into seeking justice over the past 28 years. As Dr. Peake said in her contribution, the efforts that have been made on the behalf of the families of the disappeared and those who were lost at an earlier stage in the Troubles is a clock that continues to tick. That is something I wish to focus on. Last November marked the 50th anniversary of the disappearance of Columba McVeigh. There was the disappointment in the fact that the search around that time came to an unsuccessful conclusion. What progress has been made in arriving at closure for the families of the disappeared and assisting them in arriving at a positive outcome?

I first acknowledge the support of the Governments because they have continued to support this issue. Looking back, one would have liked this to have been addressed much sooner for the families and that they would have been allowed to bring their loved ones home for Christian burial. It is fair to say that the cost for the families of not having a Christian burial continues to remain as a running sore. Each time they hope there will be a successful outcome in relation to a search and that does not happen is deeply painful. It is painful not just for the families. As families have come off search sites when searches have ended unsuccessfully, those who search - those who drag and operate the machinery and the archaeologists - have also been very emotional about the fact that they have not been able to bring the person home. I commend the ICLVR team, who work painstakingly on very difficult terrain and in all weathers. That in itself is very difficult and challenging work.

What do we need? We need further information for those families. The family group are an amazing group of people in that those who have found their loved ones have not forgotten those who continue to wait. In some ways, they are held in abeyance in that they cannot move forward fully until the issue is addressed because they feel they owe it to others to stand with them until those final bodies are brought home. There is no doubt but that for many of the families, there is the sense that there are people out there who could provide information and who sadly have not done so. The mechanism is there to do so without any due consequence of doing so, and we need to ensure that that happens.

I hope that over 2026 we will have a renewed appeal. I ask the committee to continue to hear from, to support and to stand with the families because this needs to be addressed. The one thing we in Ireland know is that there is a ritual around death and dying that needs to happen and that everybody should be afforded, and whatever we need to do to make that happen, we should do it. The resources, the specialisms and the specialist team are there, but we need information. Whatever the committee can do, we would appreciate its continued help.

I thank Dr. Peake for that. I am conscious that the clock is ticking. Governments need to provide political leadership and to be the first to be at the table when it comes to full disclosure. I know that Mr. McCord has been campaigning for that. We saw, when former Prime Minister Cameron came forward with the apology, the cathartic impact that had for the families of the victims of Bloody Sunday. For us to progress towards a more inclusive future, we need to own the mistakes that were made on all sides in the past. That is something that our Government and the British Government need to have at the heart of the work we are doing in contributing towards arriving at resolution and closure.

May I ask Dr. Peake a little about the issues relating to the widening of parameters around the pension scheme to overcome the existing inequalities and to include the bereaved, as well as those who have suffered disabilities as a result of the conflict?

In relation to the pension scheme, which is the Troubles permanent disablement payment scheme, TPDPS, there is an issue around place of birth. The UK statute is the central barrier. Therefore, there needs to be an extension of that scheme to include people who were injured in bomb explosions, shootings or attacks who live within Ireland, whether that can happen in relation to some joint Government initiative or whether it needs to be a stand-alone scheme. This is an innovative scheme that has delivered for individuals.

As the scheme moves forward, so much more is known about it that can bring change. I urge the Irish Government to look at that.

In relation to the bereaved, the bereaved scheme should stand separately to that. It should be simply focused on acknowledgment. The one thing we have not done is acknowledge the cost for families here. There has been no meaningful public acknowledgment for those bereaved and this would be a way of ensuring there is public acknowledgment. Their loved ones mattered. We need to ensure that is recognised and that should not be through trying to measure degrees of disablement, which is the case with the injured pension. It should simply focus on acknowledgment and reparation for the wrong that was done against them.

I thank our witnesses for coming in. I apologise for my late arrival to the committee meeting. At the outset, I want to say that in this job as a politician, empathy is something you are required to have every day but I often feel, listening to Mr. McCord's testimony in particular, that our ability to have empathy is tested because the sheer pain and tragedy he has experienced must gnaw away at his very being. I wanted to acknowledge on the record of the Houses at the outset and thank Mr. McCord for doing that. Having to do it again and again, I imagine, would be quite wearisome, wearing and psychologically quite difficult as well. I feel the efforts that have been made - not helpfully, I would say, in the last British Government - to play with this have not been welcome and have continued that gnawing away. I would like to think we are on a path towards trying to get to grips with it but I fully accept the points Mr. McCord made this morning with regard to that.

I want to speak for a little bit, if I can, about what Mr. McCord mentioned in his opening statement around the initiative to bring young people together to speak about the Troubles. I am struck by the juxtaposition of that with what he mentioned earlier on about having no victims on the stages and daises for the commemoration of the Good Friday Agreement. It is a point I mentioned to the Chair and others in the past about the missing piece of civic society in Northern Ireland to enable the strength of that voice to be heard. Could Mr. McCord tell us more about that event, how we can support it and what plans he has for scaling that out across Northern Ireland? It strikes me as the exact sort of grassroots event that starts knitting that fabric together and is so crucial to even enabling discussion about reconciliation in many cases. Could Mr. McCord spend a bit of time talking to us about that please?

Oakgrove Integrated College in Derry came to some of the events at Queen's University Belfast that I organised along with Professor John Barry. I got to know the headmaster well. He is a great man. The interest we got from the pupils was unbelievable. It was not a typical thing; it was nothing to do with us. They approached it completely differently. They asked us a question. Like I said earlier to Dr. Peake, we were sitting on the panel with Ms Julie Hambleton from the Birmingham bombing families. She is a lady the committee would want to get here to tell a few home truths. She does not hold back. One of the students asked a question to the panel and on our end, Ms Hambleton said to me, "Raymond, did you ever hear a question like that?" It was a few years back there. They thought about things that we had not thought about. We thought, because we were doing it that long and everyone had lost family members, that we had heard it all but they brought a bit of freshness to it, and other questions.

Now we are going up on 17 February - I just got an email two days ago - to Derry and I am sure John Harkin will invite any representatives here to go to it. It is not just Oakgrove. They are inviting a couple of other schools to sit in on it this year from both communities. I will be bringing up two victims with me. I got the invite and I said to Mr. Harkin I wanted to bring a couple of victims and both communities will be represented. We will tell our stories. We are not going up to tell them about things. We are going up for them to ask us. They want to learn about what it was really like and what it is still like. It started off with that but then I thought about it and went back to Mr. Harkin about young people from both sides of the Border being invited to these events.

We are from the other side of the Border and we are down here. Why can the kids not do it? There could be victims sitting at a certain school or hall, whatever it is, with kids hearing their stories. They are not hearing political stories. They are hearing what it is like – heartache - and it is not great. Those people are never tempted to go down that road, but learn we are all the same people. In every society there are bad people. There are bad people in England, Scotland, Wales and Europe. I am talking about doing that. We have young people from both communities, both sides of the Border. It has never been done. Let us do it and improve things. It can only improve things.

I have also contacted one of the councils in Northern Ireland. I spoke to a senior figure, not a councillor but someone I know personally, and asked him about getting the council involved. Furthermore, let us bring in different councils from Northern Ireland. There is no reason the councils this side of the Border cannot get involved. They want to build a future. They talk about a united Ireland or remaining part of Britain or what the island of Ireland is going to hold. At the minute, parties are talking about a Border poll before any real discussions take place with both communities. It is only generating fear and resentment for those who are genuine in having a united Ireland. Having discussions with young people is a part of that. As a unionist person, I am not saying this is to promote a united Ireland, but I am also not saying it to stop having these discussions. Bring the young people in from both communities and put them together. Bring them from both sides of the Border. Do this Good Friday Agreement with the support of Dublin, people in the assembly, and the UK. It is going to cost money but not a load of money. If Conservative Governments could spend millions on a ridiculous, appalling Bill, which they have done before, and with what they are spending on this, the money would be better spent on bringing young people together.

To refer to what was said about David Cameron giving an apology to victims, if I had a choice of an apology from the current Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, or David Cameron, and getting full disclosure of the documents, I would take full disclosure.

Mr. McCord’s point about hearing from victims and survivors is crucial, because we cannot unlive what happened. There is a very famous quote, "History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." It is really about taking on that courage, because the more and the greater the understanding we have, the better.

For those individuals who are bereaved, and we see this because we have a team of individuals who go into medicine, social work, nursing, and who educate the next generation, what they say is they are using something that was destructive, life-changing and had such ramifications and destroyed their families in many cases, but because they are using it for positive ends and ensuring the next generation is educated and aware, that is something which is really positive and they take solace from it. It allows them to revalidate who their loved ones were. They can find some positive purpose to work through. The more of those opportunities that we have to educate the next generation and to share that, I would hope that would be a really a strong lesson for the fact that there was not one drop of blood worth it and the cost for families has been huge. We need to ensure that whatever service we deliver, whether as a TD, Senator, nurse, doctor, police officer or lawyer, we deliver it with compassion, sensitivity and with very clear trauma-informed principles of care. If we can do that, the education that people like Mr. McCord’s group brings is essential.

A lot of questions have been asked, and I am conscious of time but also of the questions our witnesses have already answered. I will pick up on where we left off there in terms of what Mr. McCord was saying.

I was speaking to the spouse of a victim recently who told me that every time he has to recount the trauma of losing a loved one, it is retraumatising. As others have acknowledged, I thank Mr. McCord very much for taking the time to engage with the committee, asking the committee to allow him to appearance before it and for sharing his story and thoughts. It can never get any easier. We acknowledge that. I again thank Mr. McCord.

On the final point about youth, to end on a more positive note, in terms of dialogue, listening and engagement, that is a crucial aspect of the Good Friday Agreement. On Dr. Peake's earlier point, if we were to restart prior to 1998 and ask how we would frame this, I have often said - and I say it again today - in terms of the legacy piece that I do not think any side was ready at that point. It was too raw and too soon. Peace had arrived, which was something tangible, and people were happy with it. I have often also said that dealing with the legacy and the trauma - which WAVE is renowned for, and well done to it for all its work - came too late. In terms of Government engagement around how to set about this, I would just note that we can never heal the past but we can deal with it in terms of trying to give victims a voice and having some explanation for those who have lost loved ones, be they people who were disappeared or otherwise. I was struck by what Dr. Peake said about Operation Kenova. Does Mr. McCord feel the same positivity - that might be the wrong word - or the benefits of Kenova, as articulated by Dr. Peake?

My next question relates to Raymond Jnr. Mr. McCord mentioned that there was no inquest at all. Have there been false dawns in that regard whereby an inquest never happened? Mr. McCord might touch on that. Forgive me, but I am grouping the questions together as a result of the time constraints.

In terms of the transgenerational trauma Dr. Peake spoke about, this is something the committee has come across time and again with groups, be it informally elsewhere or here in this room. There is a certain generation who speak of the past having lived through it but who do not want it to trickle down to the next generation, be it their children or their grandchildren. Dr. Peake shared statistics in this regard which show that 60% of those involved in this regard are men. Many of them are in their mid-50s, which tells me that were young when the Good Friday Agreement came about.

Yes.

They are still presenting now, and Dr. Peake went through some of the reasons why some of them have come of late. The position is quite stark, to put it mildly.

To go back to the point about the pension, we have a scheme in the Republic, namely the disability pension. That would not involve recognition of what happened during the Troubles, but is a good basis from which to start. On Dr. Peake's point about those who have lost loved ones, there could be a need for a joint fund to be provided by Dublin and London in order to try to assist victims. Again, one could argue that we are at a very early starting point in terms of dealing with legacy issues. That is why the legislation is so important.

I will leave it there. There are many more questions I would like to ask, but hopefully we will have an opportunity to engage again. Members of this committee are travelling more, including up to the North and across to London.

Speaking of London, I have one further question. Dr. Peake referred earlier to families being the determinant when it comes to the reports being made public or not. In light of the legislation that is going through Westminster, has a formal request been made on that front to the British Government?

We have raised that. We think it is crucial. Obviously, there is a requirement in relation to the historical context. What we have argued is that if the Lost Lives record needs to be corrected, it should be. However, the families should determine whether they want the reports shared or not. That is really important from the point of view of both power and control.

Even when we recognise the fact of intercommunity violence, there was an intimacy to the violence in the North that sometimes is not recognised. Families need to have that respected and their rights protected.

Regarding Kenova, Jon Boutcher's hands were tied to a great extent by the Secretary of State and the Government. I met him in his office a few years ago. He asked me to give him permission to hand young Raymond's file over to the ICRIR but I said "No" and I gave my reasons for doing so, which I have explained to the committee. I did not want him to give it to an organisation that works under the instruction of the person serving as Secretary of State. It is not under the guidance of the Secretary of State it is under his or her instruction. The disclosure documents are not coming forward. Mr. Boutcher told me about that. I asked him if instead of giving it to ICRIR, he would give it to my barristers. He said he could not do that, so I cannot support Jon Boutcher. Maybe if he had said that he would like to do give it to me, things would have been different, but it was quite clear his hands were tied. As a result, he is not independent in that way. You would think that as Chief Constable he would be the dictating matters and saying "This is in our files. We will give it over." I explained earlier about the redactions. I cannot support Jon Boutcher, although he is a decent man. I have met him and spoken to him privately.

The inquests need to be up and running. Do not waste another 28 years of my family's time or 50 years of some other family's time. The Secretary of State is putting it across that he is doing a great thing by getting the inquests back. I believe that politicians in Dublin, in the Assembly in Belfast and, more than likely, in Westminster, do not want to believe it. An inquest will not work. An investigation will not work. What victims want, not what the Government wants, are openness and everything to be put on the table. That cannot happen unless they have those documents. Do not waste more time. Do not have us running backwards and forwards to the courts every week or month, only for a judge to announce yet another adjournment. That is the way it works.

Operation Kenova was a stand-alone initiative that was separate from the Chief Constable and the legacy unit within the PSNI. When I look at how those involved worked over that period, they were reviewed for being Article 2 compliant, regarding to the families' experience, in relation to policing and were viewed as cost-effective. The reports are on the website. The most important aspect for me was how the families felt. The families felt that it was a process that was important and that delivered for them. Yes, there are issues for some of them that they would want changed. Essentially, however, many of them had a process they never had before that honoured their relatives and honoured what they sadly had suffered.

The difficulty is that there is such a lack of trust. One only has to read the Operation Kenova report. It makes for damning reading. It has made people who probably saw things and heard things wonder if they really did happen. The subsections of the Operation Kenova report and what happened make for very grim and damaging reading. All of that feeds into the level of mistrust because full disclosure should come, as much as possible, in relation to families. That is what we would want to see.

The transgenerational issue is alive and well. Whatever we do, must try to prevent that in order to give the next generation a better chance than the generation before it.

That is the hope of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement. That is what we are all working collectively for. I again thank the witnesses for the work they all do, for their appearance here and for engaging with the committee. As I said, we look forward to engaging again in the not-too-distant future.

Sorry, I forgot that I brought this document to be signed. I will leave it with the committee. I spoke to one of the girls outside about it. There are plenty of lines on the back to get plenty of signatures. It would send a clear message telling Hilary Benn that we have support. It also sends a message to victims that there are politicians who care about truth and justice irrespective of who they are or who the victims are. I will leave it with the committee.

I thank Mr. McCord. There are many different groups representing different victims. In this period, however, the committee is looking to engage, particularly in view of the legacy legislation. The committee wants to engage as part of its work programme. I again thank Mr. McCord and Dr. Peake for attending and for answering the broad range of questions put to them.