Northern Ireland: Economy
Lord Alderdice Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I am grateful to and congratulate my noble friend Lord Lexden on obtaining this debate on rebalancing the economy of Northern Ireland, which is a challenge. The value of this debate in your Lordships’ House is that we are not under any compulsion to do other than try to explore the questions honestly and in a fashion that might be helpful to Her Majesty’s Government in fulfilling their responsibilities in relation to the Province.
I note that in chapter 2 of the book that launched the consultation there is a list of some of the strengths of the Northern Ireland economy: a relatively young population, high quality education and training, persistently competitive labour costs, a flexible and responsive skills system, a track record of attracting inward investment, 100 per cent broadband coverage, good transport links, a relatively low crime rate, strong tourism potential and so on. That list, more or less, is one that many of us in Northern Ireland are familiar with because we have spent a good deal of our lives trying to use lists of this kind to sell Northern Ireland to other places. Indeed, it is not hard to be convinced that we have these great strengths and potential. Some noble Lords have laboured for some years in Belfast City Hall. It is hard to inhabit such a building and not feel a sense of confidence and pride in a city that could produce something of that kind for its main building. It is an acknowledgment of the strength of the local economy at the time. Belfast is the city that produced and launched the “Titanic”, and we still produce T-shirts that say, “She was all right when she left us”. There is a great sense of pride in these things, and anyone who in the great days of the shipyards stood in one of the hulks that were being produced—cathedrals of engineering—could not but get a lump in his throat and feel a sense of pride about living in a place that could make such extraordinary products.
But it is important not to inhale when dealing with your own propaganda and to recognise that, although there are great strengths in Northern Ireland, our problems with the economy did not all come from the Troubles. Of course we had great strengths at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries when we were a central feature of an empire that spanned the world, and with all sorts of economic differences from the world in which we now live. It was also the case that many of those who laboured long and hard in the shipyards, the linen mills and other industrial aspects knew very poor circumstances in terms of their own health and welfare. That was one of the reasons we were successful too.
The truth is that after partition in the early 20th century, when the world moved into depression and we did too, it became increasingly difficult to sustain a Northern Ireland economy that was independent in terms of its own taxation and economic strength. As the 20th century moved on, it became even more difficult for our industries to be competitive, and long before the Troubles broke out we were in very substantial difficulties and already needed support from the rest of the UK economy. There was a certain amount of optimism in the 1960s when Brian Faulkner was Minister of Commerce. He certainly brought a degree of energy, enthusiasm and a sense of optimism that there were new possibilities, and it is not at all clear how things would have gone had he been able to remain in post, the Troubles had not happened, and so on. But if we stare long and hard at the reality we quickly come to the conclusion that we could not assume that, without the Troubles and all that came with them, everything would have been well in the Northern Ireland economy.
The Troubles added to our problems in two ways. First, they chased away business, whether internally or through inward investment. Who would want to invest in a country that was at war with itself? But there was another almost insidious way in which our economy was damaged, and that was through the sustenance that was necessary from the British Government and the British Treasury to maintain some cohesion in the community, ensure that public services were delivered, and that security did not suffer any more than was absolutely necessary. What that did over two generations was to produce a population in Northern Ireland that was extraordinarily dependent on the public sector and public expenditure. It is not just that it was the case in practice; it was a culture that was espoused and adopted—it was taken into the whole community.
When my noble friend talked about “jobs, jobs, jobs”, as he quite rightly did, the problem with the phrase is that there is an assumption that it is up to the Government or someone else to provide us with those jobs, whereas actually what we want is a community that sees itself taking the initiative in order to provide its own wealth creation. I am afraid that I found it enormously difficult in east Belfast—a community that would like to live with the myth of an enthusiastic, entrepreneurial and largely unionist population—to persuade local people to start up their own businesses and try to create wealth for themselves. It was always a question of being dependent on the Government doing something or someone else providing the jobs.
The reason I mention this is not because I am particularly sceptical about any of the proposals around. My noble friend mentioned the corporation tax proposal, which seems to me to be a potentially substantial jolt. It is not going to be a requirement that the Northern Ireland Executive should institute a particular level of corporation tax. The challenge is this: are you prepared to take on board this opportunity? I hear in Scotland, for example, all sorts of talk about wanting the power to set corporation tax, but the Government there are not even implementing the capacity they already have to raise income tax, should they choose to do so. It makes me wonder whether what is in truth required there is a serious economic power or whether it is a political game being played for wholly other reasons. But the possibility that people would take responsibility for something as large as corporation tax, or perhaps more modestly, aircraft passenger duty, is to say to our local elected Assembly and Northern Ireland Executive, “You now have the responsibility as well as the power to do some of the things that are necessary to make a change. Are you up for it?”. That, in a sense, is the question that I come back to my noble friend with because, as has already been said, some months on from the election to the Assembly and the establishment of the Northern Ireland Executive, the plan is not at all clear.
No one went into the election in Northern Ireland in any great doubt as to which would be the major parties of government or who were likely to be the First and Deputy First Ministers. When an election was held in the United Kingdom as a whole and the largely unexpected outcome—at least in some circles—of a coalition came into being, it took only a few days to put together a coalition agreement. One might be critical or otherwise of it, but the fact is that it took only a few days—and there was no clarity before the election that there would be that kind of an outcome. In Northern Ireland, it was absolutely clear what the outcome would be, and months later we still do not have the kind of plan that is necessary to take the country forward. Although the question of corporation tax and other fiscal freedoms is important, and although it is true that we have great strengths and possibilities, we have two major problems. One is the fact that our peripheral position and our previous dependence on heavy engineering and other aspects of the economy are disadvantages, and we have a cultural disadvantage in that we have become an institutionalised, dependent economy which is much more difficult to get out of because it needs a change in people’s mindset.
But I come back to the fact that there are strengths. We have two universities and relationships with other universities that produce ideas and the possibility that those ideas could be productive and help to build up and strengthen our economy. It is also true that, even now, many of our most creative young people find themselves having to leave Northern Ireland rather than be able to stay and develop their skills in order to build our economy. If there are things we can do to help nudge—perhaps it requires more than a nudge; perhaps it requires a really substantial push—those who now have the responsibility for Northern Ireland to take that responsibility seriously for the development and rebalancing of the economy, and if this debate contributes to that, I think we will have done a worthwhile job and made a contribution.
Patrick Finucane
Lord Alderdice Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, I understand this and I would not want to say that an inquiry would be no use in any circumstances. We are talking about an event, however, that took place 22 and a half years ago. We know from reading about those inquiries about the people who were dead or forgotten or who could not be found. There are seven key witnesses here. There is Brian Nelson, an FRU agent who died in 2003. RUC agent William Stobie was murdered in 2001. Sir John Hermon, the ex-Chief Constable of the RUC, is dead. Brian Fitzsimons, the ex-deputy head, was killed in the Chinook crash, as was John Deverell, the most senior security service rep in Northern Ireland. Wilfred Monahan died of natural causes. These people are all dead, and this is one problem with the inquiry: one is not able to call them because they are not able to turn up. Therefore, one needs to strike a balance. When one adds three, four, six or 10 years from today, if one is going down that route, one must then consider whether, sadly, others will be added to the list. One must take that balance into account. Asking noble Lords and everyone else to wait 15 months for this review is one way in which we can then move forward.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I will take further the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. I do not entirely agree with her that the events are not known and that the apology has come before they are known. It is known that there was a murder and that there was collusion: that is clear. However, the details have not yet been published and it is very important that they are.
The noble Baroness said something else that will be very disturbing to the House. She suggested that because of the form of the inquiry, no criminal prosecutions could come from it. Other noble Lords have expressed the concern in various ways that, should material come forward into the public domain, prosecutions should proceed. I seek assurance from my noble friend that that is the case and that the concerns of the noble Baroness are not necessary because prosecutions can proceed from the publication of the report.
Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007 (Extension of duration of non-jury trial provisions) Order 2011
Lord Alderdice Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Glentoran
My Lords, I did not intend to come into this debate, but the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, said two things that worry me. He suggested that the PSNI is getting complacent. I do not believe that to be true. It is under threat continuously. He and I have met widows in recent times. That is not right. For four or five years now, I have worked with the Secretary of State and no one is more diligent or more energetic than my right honourable friend Owen Paterson. The communication is very free and ongoing, and Owen does not hide anything from anyone. He tells it as it is. If the noble Lord does not like the way in which it is coming out, that is different. But it is the way it is.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for outlining the background to the order. I should like to pick up one or two of the comments. Like other noble Lords, of course I regret the fact that it is necessary for this order to come forward again. Perhaps, particularly today, noble Lords might expect me to say that such a thing should not be necessary. In the final IMC report published today, we have said again that it is time for peace process institutions to pass into history and for the proper administration of politics and the rule of law to take place under Northern Ireland authority by Northern Ireland elected representatives.
I and my colleagues very much stand by that but it does not necessarily mean that the particular process to which we are referring today should be set to the side immediately. I want to take that a little further. It is clear that there are those in Northern Ireland on the republican side—we sometimes call them dissident republicans—who simply are not persuaded that political arguments should not be made through threat or actual use of violence. They continue to believe that. For a very long time there have been people who have taken that view in Ireland, north and south as well as elsewhere.
As the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, said, it is also clear that there are those in the loyalist community who continue to use violence. With regard to them, I see little evidence that there is any political agenda at all. It is very much about self-aggrandisement and crime. In some cases it is a kind of incipient attack on the police and the historic inquiries team, because some of them simply do not want their past crimes to catch up with them. They want to foment violence, trouble and sectarianism within their own loyalist community.
My difficulty, and I think my noble friend will agree, is that despite the fact that the previous Government indicated that a more substantial process would take place, the consultation was very limited. It seems to me that, the next time round, there needs to be a much more substantial consultation at a much earlier stage. Over the past number of years the majority of people—and I say this from my experience in the IMC—have been increasingly prepared to come forward to give evidence and material, to participate in juries and so on. However, I am not wholly sure that we will get to a place in the next two years, or perhaps even a little longer than that, when there will be no fear and no reason for fear in the community.
It seems to me that there is something fundamentally unsatisfactory about telling ourselves that in two years it will be fine; in two more years it will be fine; and in another two years it will be fine. We know how long the provisional can stay and that it can become rather permanent. I do not think that that is satisfactory. I wonder whether the notion of non-jury trials is such that they will have to be with us for quite some time. They are not for widespread use—we are talking about only a dozen or perhaps two dozen individuals over a period of 12 months. However, it is still a significant number.
I come back to a matter that I and colleagues in the Alliance Party have spoken about in the past—that in such non-jury trials a number of judges might sit together, not on the basis of a two-year order but perhaps on a longer-term basis in circumstances where it proved necessary. We have seen such circumstances in the Megrahi trial, for example, which was a three-judge court, with appeal to a five-judge court.
In the past, the argument made by the judicial authorities in Northern Ireland when there were a very large number of cases was that it was completely impossible as the number of judges required would make it completely impractical. There was some force in that argument. However, where we are talking about a very small number of cases it does not seem unreasonable to believe that the judiciary in Northern Ireland might be able to sustain the numbers required. In theory the Diplock courts were unsatisfactory; in practice complaints about justice during the Troubles were more about perverse outcomes such as the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, which were jury trials, rather than the actions of judges in Northern Ireland. It says a great deal about the calibre of the judges in Northern Ireland over many years that there were not an enormous number of complaints. In principle it was not satisfactory but in practice there was relatively little complaint.
Lord Empey
I want to make sure that I understand what the noble Lord is saying. Is he saying that instead of coming back in two years’ time for another renewal, which in theory could go on indefinitely, we move to a transition proposal? As Dr Johnson said, there is nothing as permanent as the temporary. In other words, would this become a transition period rather than simply coming back in two years for renewal? Was the noble Lord saying that his proposal for multi-judge courts would be a transition to where we would all want to be with jury trials?
Lord Alderdice
As ever the noble Lord is alert and well ahead of the argument. There is a case that, rather than waiting for two years, when we would have little opportunity but possibly a modest consultation and a repeat of the order, perhaps after only one year there could be a much more serious consultation process that would look at the question of whether a more substantial change might be made. For example, a more permanent arrangement which had three judges sitting in such non-jury cases might be considered. I say “after only one year” because quite clearly it would require substantial primary legislation that would require serious consultation and thought. However, I feel that it would not be good for us to get into a position where every two years we repeated this because we could not think it through properly. It is much better to come back for a proper consultation, not with just 11 returns but with a more substantial debate which gave time for proper primary legislation. I fear—from my own experience and I rather suspect that of other noble Lords with experience in Northern Ireland—that those on the loyalist side and the republican side who may be prepared to threaten juries and otherwise use threats and intimidation may not disappear in two years or four years or six years. Some of the cases of violence in the last little while will take quite a while through the process.
Lord Glentoran
To some extent I considerably disagree with the noble Lord’s proposition. I understand where he is coming from but I feel that psychologically to impose a permanent trial system without judges, a Diplock court system, is admitting defeat. I am still an optimist, even now. I still think that we will be able to get back to proper democracy and judicial processes. I cannot go along with the idea that we set up this non-jury system of trials for as long as we want. The other thing I like about the present system is that it reflects the state of play in Northern Ireland because the heart of the state of play on one side is financial and on the alternative side it is terrorism and criminality and the way the judicial processes are working. It is very important that this should come back to your Lordships’ House and to the other place once every two years.
Lord Alderdice
I am grateful to my noble friend for intervening, but in a sense he is already engaging in the process that I was suggesting. I was not suggesting that we immediately jump to that suggestion or any other, but rather that we should engage in a proper process of debate and consultation rather than the more than modest consultation that there was. The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, has a point when he talks about consultation and communication. If there is a proper consultation over a reasonable period, the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, can be engaged with, rather than living in hope that everything will be fine, when all our experience, sadly, is that it has taken a lot longer to get where we want to go than we could ever have imagined.
Lord Bew
My Lords, I offer reluctant but strong support to the noble Lord, Lord Shutt. It may or may not be a comfort to him to know that he stands in a long line of Liberal Ministers, going back to Mr Gladstone in the 19th century, who have been perplexed by the problems created by the Irish tradition of political violence for the legal system, particularly for the process of jury trials. There was a serious argument in the 19th century that such cases should be taken out of Ireland and tried in Liverpool; serious writers argued that that was a way of preserving jury trial. More generally, it was perceived that the inability to have proper legal procedures in cases involving political violence was pointing up a fundamental crisis in Ireland—the failure of the attempt to combine colonialism and democracy—and that this created a context in which terrorism existed.
What is striking about the situation in Northern Ireland now, though, is that by any standards we have a legitimate democratic system. In the most recent Assembly elections, 107 out of 108 Members of that Assembly were fully elected by the people of Northern Ireland and are full supporters of the political arrangements that are in place. In a referendum, the people of Ireland as a whole showed that they support those political arrangements. We now know that it is too sweeping a judgment to say that terrorism arises simply from a denial of democracy, because we have now established a legitimate and democratic system and we still have these problems with democracy and a situation where it would yet be unwise to return to jury trials in terrorism-related cases. I take very seriously the advice from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in particular, which the Minister mentioned in his introductory remarks.
Like other noble Lords, I have one caveat, one doubt. It concerns the process of consultation, which seems to have been meagre in this case. A few months ago the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, came to the House with a piece of legislation that reflected electoral law. There, in fact, the consultation was actually wider. In some ways this is a more important matter, going to the heart of where we have reached now in Northern Ireland.
I fully recognise what the Minister describes when he says that the Northern Ireland Office was not overwhelmed with advice on this matter; for a number of reasons, people want to turn their eyes away from this. It is actually difficult to have a lively consultation on it, and the Minister’s remarks in this respect are entirely reasonable and fair. I wonder, though, whether we should be thinking along the lines suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, of having a genuine debate. I am not convinced that he is right about the desirability of three judges as a solution in this context, even in the short term, but that does not matter; there is no question that if you said, “We are consulting about this”, you would provoke a substantive debate and much more lively contributions.
I ask the Minister to consider ways in which we could ensure that the next time that he has to come to this House asking for an extension in this respect, if there is a next time, we will be able to say that we have had a proper public consultation and a genuine element of vigour in the debate that occurred beforehand. For reasons that are not his fault or the fault of the Government, he has not been able to say that, but if we took a different approach there might be a way of having a better debate.
Bloody Sunday Inquiry
Lord Alderdice Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Alderdice
My Lords, it has been said on a number of occasions in quoting the Saville report today that Bloody Sunday was a personal tragedy for the victims and indeed for their friends and families, a social and political catastrophe for all the people of Northern Ireland and a military and political disaster for the British Army. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville of Newdigate, has rightly made that crystal clear. I am not at all convinced, though, that had his report come out and been greeted or responded to by the Prime Minister with a carefully crafted response pointing up all the difficulties of the time, the pressures that the Army was under and so on, there would have been any transformational outcome from the expenditure of this enormous amount of money and long period of time.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, said, as did my noble friend Lord Macdonald of River Glaven in a wonderful maiden speech, it was the Prime Minister’s speech that was transformational for the people in Derry. As I listened to it myself, I was reminded very much of the remarkable speech that Barack Obama made on racism during his presidential campaign, where he tore up his carefully crafted speech and wrote something that was passionate, human and engaging with the problem. That is what the Prime Minister did: he engaged passionately in a committed way, understanding quite deeply the pain that was involved for all concerned, and he gave a complete, total and absolute apology. To me, that is what was transformational.
To say that the Saville report was crucial and positive is not to say that the inquiry is the only way that things could have been done, nor is it to say that expenditure of almost £200 million over 12 years was necessary to reach such an outcome. I find it difficult to see how it was necessary to spend a great deal more than South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was dealing with the pain of the whole period of apartheid. Whether that was the only and absolutely necessary way of dealing with the problem is the issue that I wish to address this evening. Frankly, I do not believe that the expenditure was necessary and I think that we need to learn from our experience. However, that is not to say that what we have gone through has not been importantly transformational or that the outcome of the Saville inquiry—the report itself and the judgments on it—was not absolutely right, crystal clear and extremely important. For me, that is not the issue.
As has been pointed out already, there are limitations to any such judicial inquiry. Let me give just one example without referring at all to the wider political context. On 9 June this year, the historical inquiries team published another of its many reports. The report investigates the killing of 41 year-old William McGreanery, who was shot by a British solider in September 1971, substantially in advance of Bloody Sunday. Although the RUC’s Chief Superintendent Frank Lagan in Londonderry had advised that the British soldier involved should be prosecuted for murder, the then Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, Sir Basil Kelly—indeed, he was the last such Attorney-General until the recent appointment—said no. It was said:
“If soldier A was guilty of any crime in this case, it would be manslaughter and not murder. Soldier A whether he acted wrongly or not, was at all times acting in the course of his duty and I cannot see how the malice, express or implied, necessary to constitute murder could be applied to his conduct”.
There is a case to be made that that ruling—entirely inadvertently, I am sure—might have created a sense among young British soldiers at the time that they enjoyed an element of impunity if they were acting in the course of their duty. Such a case could be made. All I want to point out is that that would have been outwith the remit of the Saville inquiry, yet wholly relevant to understanding how the events of the time came about.
The key to understanding the importance of Bloody Sunday and the greater need for an inquiry into those events than into many other circumstances is the profound symbolic significance of Bloody Sunday. Next year, we will recall the tragedy of the sinking of the “Titanic”, with the loss of many hundreds of lives. The fact that we will not remember many other ships that sank with terrible loss of life means not that those who died on the “Titanic” were more important than those who died on other ships but that that tragedy was, in the words of my noble friend and countryman Lord Mawhinney, iconic. To give a perhaps more relevant example, those who died in the Sharpeville massacre were not somehow more important than others who died, but there was an iconic or symbolic significance to their deaths that somehow came to embody all sorts of other things. That kind of significance is by no means unique. Indeed, my friend Professor Vamik Volkan, who has looked at many areas of trouble and conflict throughout the world, has observed that, in almost every situation where such conflict goes on for a long period, there is what he calls a “chosen trauma”. He does not mean that the trauma is chosen in a conscious way but that there is some traumatic experience that comes to sum up and express, almost in a couple of words, the awfulness of people’s experience.
The need for an inquiry into Bloody Sunday was not because there needed to be an individual inquiry into every other case to achieve what was necessary but rather because the inquiry emblemised something. However, the inquiry could emblemise that only if the British Government then responded with true regret and deep apology for what happened. This is why it is not only the inquiry that we need to understand, but the response that it evinced.
Then there is the question of whether this inquiry is of the kind that should be embarked on. There has been almost a suggestion that if the Government say that there should be no more open-ended inquiries, there should be no more inquiries of any kind. It seems to me that that is not the question. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has pointed out that there are at least four institutions that undertake inquiries: the HET, the PSNI, the ombudsman and the coroner. There is no proposition to get rid of the investigative capacity of the PSNI, the ombudsman or the coroner, so of course investigations will continue to take place. The question is: how do we deal with the legacy of the past, which we all desperately hope will not return under the pressure from dissident republicans? How we deal with the legacy of the past is no easy matter.
The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, has experience of how difficult it is, no matter how much time you allow and how much you consult, to come up with a mechanism or device that deals with the past. First, it is not always possible to cure and redeem all of the past. As a psychiatrist, I found it frustrating at times that people seemed to accept that if someone had been physically damaged by having lost a leg, it was not replaceable, but if there was a psychological problem, there must be some way of resolving it. That is not true. Some people are emotionally destroyed and it is not possible to repair the damage. That can be true of communities as well. We should not always assume that everything can be resolved.
Secondly, in trying to resolve things we should be a little modest about what we can do. That something needs to be done does not necessarily mean that the Government should be doing it. There are already investigative agencies that need the resources to continue to investigate the past. They are continuing to do so, as has been made clear. However, when we talk about the victims and the need for closure, how much resource has been given to assist the emotional and support needs of individuals and their families? I tabled a Question in your Lordships’ House for the previous Government, to ask whether they had looked at the financial consequences of giving help and succour—psychologically and emotionally—to the victims of the Troubles. Had they looked at any other part of the world where this had been necessary? Had they looked at the financial consequences of dealing with these things for the health service in Northern Ireland? The answer was no, they had not looked at it at all. They had focused entirely on legal devices for addressing these problems. I am in no way against legal devices; I just do not think they are the only way of dealing with our problems. There are human, psychological, relational and emotional ways of dealing with these things that have been hugely under-resourced in Northern Ireland.
Thirdly, we should not underestimate the importance of the political process in helping people to get over the experiences of the past. It really does make a difference to many people to see former enemies working together for the benefit of the community. Many people then feel that whatever the pain they suffered, at least the community has somehow moved on. That responsibility is a heavy and burdensome one on those who are currently Ministers in the devolved Assembly. They must show that political progress can work, and that relationships built now from the ashes of the past 30 years in some fashion redeem all the misery that was created. I hope they appreciate and understand that.
I have already mentioned that there are other institutions that can undertake inquiries. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, has pointed out that in other countries they do not depend solely on lawyers to assist them when it comes to inquiring into the past. There are others, which have other contributions to make. Perhaps we have pushed it too far. I am still, though perhaps not for much longer, a member of the Independent Monitoring Commission. Why was it created? It was created precisely because we discovered the limits of the judicial process in resolving problems. It was given powers quite outwith the normal powers to address some of the questions that needed to be dealt with.
Lord Tebbit
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Does he not recognise the extraordinary disproportionality between the size and the sheer resources devoted to the Londonderry inquiry as opposed to the paucity of resources devoted to inquiries where the victims are on the other side of the political divide?
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I entirely understand that. I also appreciate that even in comparison with the paucity of the money devoted to those legal inquiries, the amount of money devoted to caring for victims’ emotional needs is pitiable in my experience of working with some of these people. My concern is precisely that we focus too much on judicial inquiries of any kind.
I have noticed in the recent past that people in Northern Ireland—former journalists, academics, victims on all sides, former paramilitaries, those who have lost loved ones, former security force members—have started to come together to tell each other their stories away from the limelight and reporting and with no support from government at all. I am rather more hopeful that that kind of rebuilding and knitting together of relationships among ordinary people in Northern Ireland may do more to heal our broken society than any further major government interventions other than the normal, proper due process of the administration of law done with a human face and a human heart.