‘Straight shooter Sir Declan Morgan, straight talking at consultation’, says Raymond McCord in Sunday World

Sunday World, June 3rd, 2024

Sir Declan Morgan, the former Lord Chief Justice is a straight shooter.

And a straight talker.

I know. I was up in front of him in the Ulster High Court on occasion when he was on the Bench adjudicating in civil cases against this newspaper.

Now, of course, he’s heading up the Independent Commission for Reconciliation  and Information Recovery – and what a mouthful that is – set up by the Westminster Government when they introduced the Legacy Bill, now being violently opposed by the relatives of Troubles victims.

Oh, and by all the political parties here.

And Sir Declan didn’t miss and hit the wall when he courageously took main stage with the irrepressible Raymond McCord at a victims’ relatives seminar in Ulster University.

He said that our politicians of all parties are now paying the price for failure to implement the Stormont Agreement of 2014.

That Agreement embraced new initiatives on legacy cases, including the establishment of a Historical Investigation Unit to examine unresolved murders.

But that didn’t happen. And the former top judge said that if it had there would be no need for the Legacy Act now.

Sir Declan revealed that one MP told him back then that the Stormont House Agreement would never work because “once we get into the detail of it, all the parties would fall out”.

How times have changed. All the parties, not only in Belfast, but in Dublin – are now united in opposing Westminster’s Legacy Act.

If only the bickering Stormont Backbiters had done the same ten years ago, as Sir Declan says, there’d be no need for it.

Not one Stormont politician turned up at the consultation at the University.

So some things, even after ten years still haven’t changed.