Stormont House Agreement: Implementation Debate
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Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard
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Stormont House Agreement: Implementation
Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I welcome the opportunity to have the debate and thank the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) for initiating it. I think the starting point is the inequality in the current process and system, which was highlighted by the Minister just a few weeks ago in this Chamber. He accepted that the approach to the past had not been proportionate. That is a good starting point, and we have to realise that.
I am not going to go over all the issues, but may I say that unless we get a system that delivers for the victims in our society, Northern Ireland will never progress as a society that builds together and works together.
We have heard instances of some former soldiers. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I served in the Ulster Defence Regiment. I remember being on duty when Sergeant Hugh McCormick, a Roman Catholic police officer, was murdered coming out of mass on a Sunday morning—I remember going to that. I remember being flown out to an incident in which a good friend of mine, Jimmy Graham, was killed—the third of the Graham brothers to be murdered. He was driving a school bus to pick up a load of young kids to bring them to swimming.
The hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) mentioned the innocent victims. How much more innocent can you get than workmen coming home from serving and working, doing a building job? Their van was blown up at Teebane. How much more innocent can you get than those standing around a war memorial to remember the dead of the two world wars? An IRA bomb went off and murdered 11 of those people. How much more innocent can you get than those Kingsmill people going home from their work? This is absolutely disproportionate. I remember speaking to Ronnie Funston at the Enniskillen cattle mart where we were selling cattle. Two days later, he was murdered on his tractor. He was an innocent man and not a member of any security forces.
I have to say that, unless we stop this process whereby the majority of the focus is on former security forces, we will never move forward. If terrorists and former terrorists can get their royal prerogative, why can soldiers not? There has to be some equality in this system; we do not have any at present.