Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“As the Fudgery resumes business as usual in Stormont House on Monday, and with the Government due to share with the five parties the draft clauses on the HIU from their proposed Bill, it is timely to comment on the most glaring of the failures of the Stormont House Agreement on the past – namely, the total failure to address the fundamental issue of the definition of a victim.
“The SHA Agreement, that all five parties bought into, perpetuates the obscenity that ‘victim’ includes victim-makers. This equating of innocent victim with the perpetrator is the cancer at the heart of the failure to deal justly with true victims. Unless and until it is addressed, no proposals on victims’ issues will be fair or just.
“Yet, sadly, to date both the DUP and UUP have acquiesced in proposals which perpetuate the existing obnoxious definition. Making addressing the definition issue the immovable precondition to any agreement on dealing with the past does not seem to enter their thinking, as they devote hours to seeking agreement with the Sinn Fein representatives of the victim-makers.
“As for the proposal for an Independent Commission for Information Retrieval (ICIR), it is as absurd as it is perverse. It creates a terrorist confessional, where the terrorist has free rein to provide his self-serving narrative while rewarded with immunity on anything he says and anonymity to boot, as the hapless victim will never be told even the name of the murderer, nor can anything he says ever be shared with the police. All that is on offer to innocent victims is the perversity of ‘Provo truth’. The ICIR is a win, win for the terrorist – republican and ‘loyalist’ – and a lose, lose for the victim. “Shame on those unionists who have allowed this proposal to emerge.
“As for the HIU clauses which are to be shared with the parties, I trust HMG has included adequate steps to protect national security on the matter of disclosure. Further, while full disclosure is pledged by the British Government, the Irish Government is getting away with a promise of mere cooperation. Such is not good enough.”