Independent Monitoring Commission for Northern Ireland

Lord Browne of Belmont Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Belmont]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, for tabling this Question and thus facilitating what I am sure will be a fair and balanced discussion of the role and nature of the Independent Monitoring Commission. Over the past seven years, the IMC has had a challenging and onerous task, one that I believe it carried out with scrupulous independence. During that period, the commission published 26 separate reports. In many instances, they were strongly criticised by commentators in the media and by politicians of all parties. However, it is now generally accepted that the IMC’s conclusions were fair, unbiased and based on the best available evidence derived from careful and meticulous investigations. I did not envy its task. When the facts or circumstances that it presented rebutted a publicly accepted assumption, the commission members were often pilloried by politicians and in the press. The task of publicly presenting uncomfortable truths, often when the peace process in Northern Ireland was known more for its fragility than for its stability, was as controversial as it was unpalatable, but without the IMC we would not have attained the necessary levels of public trust and confidence to allow the restoration of the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland in 2007. Without the IMC, the two communities in Northern Ireland could not have been convinced that their political enemies would make a positive contribution towards the creation of a better society for all. For that, I am very thankful.

In conclusion, I should mention the IMC’s final report, which focused, unfortunately, on civil disturbances of a sectarian nature in east Belfast, the constituency that I represented for 25 years at council and assembly level. I had very much hoped that events of this nature had been relegated to history, and the report was indeed disturbing and depressing to me. Nevertheless, I take comfort from the fact that both communities continued to co-operate, the men of violence were sidelined and a descent into a spiral of sectarian violence was avoided. Perhaps we may conclude therefore that the fair and balanced final report of the IMC contributed in no small measure to achieving reconciliation between the two communities in Northern Ireland. Perhaps the Minister will agree that the greatest achievement of the commission is the general agreement in Northern Ireland that it is no longer required.