Don’t draw a line under the Troubles

Truth Recovery Process Letter to the Irish Examiner responding to Mick Clifford article, as published

Mick Clifford’s article — ‘No room for closure when history is rewritten’ (Irish Examiner, February 8) rightly highlights the problem we face on this island in dealing with our recent past. Our only criticism is that he does not include all those concerned.

The Irish Government and politicians in almost every political party on these islands have sought to draw a line under the Troubles with the Good Friday Agreement. While commiserating with victims they put few mechanisms in place to address legacy issues honestly and comprehensively.

Victims campaign groups have managed to keep the Troubles on the agenda but only by constant agitation and protracted litigation that, despite their best efforts has never included more than a small fraction of the families affected by more than 3,500 deaths and the more than 45,000 injured.

The price of having to address the problems through the confrontational arena of the courts has not only included the retraumatising of victims and survivors but society at large as it perpetuates division and makes reconciliation for all of us increasingly difficult.

The British government’s new independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery has also met with criticism and is, we believe, overly legalistic in its approach.

The Truth Recovery Process has been advocating a process based on mediation and counselling models with conditional amnesties as an option where former combatants are willing to come forward with information. It requires them in return to meet strict criteria and would of course require the agreement of those victims and survivors affected by their testimony.

We had several people willing to participate in such a process when we established our group in 2018/9 but only a handful are still alive from the earliest, bloodiest years. Once they go all we will be left with, as Mick Clifford points out is the “legacy” bequeathed by the British government and Sinn Féin.

Hopefully the appointment of Jim O’Callaghan as the minister for justice and Simon Harris as Tánaiste and minister for foreign affairs will see them take up the long avoided challenge we confront on this side of the Border, as well as with their Northern and British counterparts.

Padraig Yeates, secretary, Truth Recovery Process

Mick Clifford’s article can be read at the link below or on the Irish Examiner website

https://www.truthrecoveryprocess.ie/newsupdates/no-room-for-closure-when-history-is-rewritten