Commenting on leaked details of a government paper circulated during the talks last week TUV leader Jim Allister said:
“It is obvious that the proposals being discussed at the talks amount to a revisiting of Haass.
“Northern Ireland looks set to be lumbered with a whole new raft of quangos – some of them remarkably similar to the Parades Commission II which was rightly rejected by the Unionist community back in 2010.
“It is also clear that the mechanisms which would have allowed Republicans to re-write the history of the Troubles are back on the table.
“The Historical Investigative Unit (HIU) – a parallel police force with equal investigative powers as the PSNI – is being discussed again. Arrests, searches, forensics etc will all be within their powers. There appears to be little regard to the duplicate costs. Under the proposals for this unit under Haass actions by “state actors”, such as the RUC and UDR, will be more readily investigated than the criminality of the terrorists. State files and records will be available; terrorist secrets will remain hidden. There is a real prospect of the RUC and UDR being hung out to dry while the IRA continues to escape.
“The Commission for Information Retrieval is also resurrected. This would permit untested, even anonymous, self-serving terrorist versions of the “truth” and provide more opportunity for Provo rewrite of history. And, then, as a bonus the terrorist gets immunity, both criminal and civil, on the information provided and can preserve his anonymity.
“On top of all this there is talk of new provision for the Irish language and a new tier of North/Southery in the form of a consultative form.
“Thus, while essential public services are being cut back yet more money will be squandered on Irish and politically contrived links with the Republic.
“Fundamentally, while there is talk in the document about facilitating the possibility of an opposition there is no provision to remove the automatic right of parties to be in government whether they can agree on policy or not. Thus the primary flaw at the heart of Stormont remains. Because of that even if agreement is reached around these proposals there will be another round of crisis talks just around the corner.”