Findings of Institute of Irish Studies poll on Conditonal Amnesties that Irish News chose not to publish

Below is the text of a Letter to the Editor of the Irish News sent by the Truth Recovery Process after the newspaper failed to include the findings on Conditional Amnesties in its published version of a specially commissioned poll from the Institute of Irish Studies-Liverpool University earlier this week. Conditional Amnesty remains an issue that most commentators and publications that cover Legacy issues continue to avoid although it is clear that a large number of people in Northern Ireland are willing to consider it.

The findings of the Institute of Irish Studies-University of Liverpool/The Irish News poll published this week ‘shows an electorate seeking progress’, according to Professor Peter Shirlow, Director of the Institute, but one lacking faith in Northern Ireland’s current political leadership. He points out that three quarters of those surveyed want ‘the next executive (to) prioritise jobs, health and welfare over constitutional issues' rather than the Border or identity issues.

This is echoed inside in a passionate plea by Leona O’Neill, one of your regular columnists, who asks ‘if Northern Ireland will ever change’? She says that her own experiences ‘mirror a sick society that has been festering for many years and needs help and support to get properly back on its feet. We've had 23 years now since the Good Friday Agreement to do that, but in the last few years it seems we have not only stalled but have been walking backwards.’

Yet in all the column inches of analysis in the Irish News over the past two days one remarkable finding of the survey was not reported, let alone commented on. It was the response to the question ‘Regarding Legacy we can only get truth for victims and survivors if we offer conditional amnesties to those who offer up the truth’. This is, to the best of our knowledge the first time that the question of Conditional Amnesties has been included in a major opinion poll on this island.

According to the poll, 12.7% of Unionists ‘strongly agreed’ with the proposal for conditional amnesties and a further 25.9% ‘agreed’. This is 38.6% of all Unionists surveyed. The respective figures for Nationalists were 18.9%, 34.6% and 53.5%. Among respondents who did not identify as either Unionists or Nationalists, the respective figures were 8.3%, 32.5% and 40.8%.

By comparison, only 29.1% of Unionists, 12.6% of Nationalists and 22.8% of those who were nonaligned, were opposed to Conditional Amnesties.

Although the Truth Recovery Process has been campaigning on this issue for over three years and we have always believed there was more support for it than was reflected in the political debate, even we are surprised at how much support there is for Conditional Amnesties as an option to the courts for dealing with the deeply divisive Legacy of the conflict in Irish society, North and South.

Nowhere are these findings reflected in the debate between the major political parties, because to do so would dilute the identity politics which have served them well for decades, but have served society in Northern Ireland so badly. This silence has perpetuated ethnographic divisions every bit as much as talk of Border Polls or the Northern Ireland Protocol, creating a deeply frustrated and alienated electorate in the process.

There are major concerns to be addressed concerning the rights of victims and survivors where any form of amnesty is concerned but so far the main political parties parrot each other in subscribing to the objectives of ‘Truth and Justice’ while coming up with no practical proposals for doing so. The more cynical among them must know that with every passing year the possibility of achieving either Truth or Justice recedes ever further into the past.

The British and Irish governments must also share a major part of the responsibility for this situation. But above all it needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency by the public representatives on the part of our island where the poisonous legacy of the past has had the most corrosive effect on people’s lives. If we cannot agree on how to approach a shared past it doesn’t hold out much prospect for a shared future.