Reply to Máiría Cahill’s Letter in Sunday Independent of January 29th, 2023

Sir,

Máiría Cahill’s column last week, ‘Clergy needs to participate in truth recovery, not get a free pass to design it’, is an important contribution to the debate on how we deal with the Legacy of the Troubles on this island. It is a measured response to the initiative proposed by Archbishop Eamon Martin, acknowledging his consistent efforts ‘on "shedding light” on the truths of a troubled past that remain "hidden and festering”, while pointing out that the Catholic Church itself has a legacy of  sexual abuse to address.

We, in the Truth Recovery Process are not looking for a free pass for the churches, or anyone else. Like victims and survivors, former combatants, governments, political parties and state agencies in Britain and Ireland they have a role to play in finding more effective and constructive ways of addressing the legacy of a 30 year long conflict. We can no longer contract the problem out to the criminal justice system. The courts were never designed to deal with the legacy of such conflicts or achieve reconciliation afterwards.  

The experience of 25 years of ‘peace’ since the Belfast Good Friday Agreement was signed suggests that rather than consolidating the peace process, the long march of inquests and trials through the courts has seen communal divisions deepen. We believe that victims and survivors have an absolute right to seek justice through the courts if they so wish, but we also believe that there need to be alternatives provided for those who cannot have their day in court and in some cases do not want that day in court, but do want to know what happened, why it happened, who was involved and above all who was responsible?

We believe that in this context victims champions such as Máiría Cahill, with their deep understanding of the trauma that the Troubles have inflicted on people should be among those brought into the process of how best we can address the legacy of the Troubles.

Harry Donaghy, Northern Chair

John Green, Southern Chair

Padraig Yeates, Secretary

Truth Recovery Process