Truth, reconciliation, justice and the legacy of the Troubles

Letters to the Editor, Irish Times, March 5th, 2024

Sir, – Danny Boyd (Letters, March 5th) raises important questions about the Truth Recovery Process. I would like to assure him that we fully support the right of Sean Brown’s family, and all families, to truth and justice in the courts, as we do the call by the coroner for a public inquiry into Mr Brown’s murder because of the obstruction he has encountered from state agencies. Mr Boyd asks how our proposal for conditional amnesties will “work for a combatant who has been involved in a number of murders, such as a member of the Glenanne Gang?” And “will all of the relatives of the victims of this notorious gang have to agree to the conditional amnesty? What if some do and others don’t?”

At present groups such as the “Glenanne Gang” have little to fear from the courts, any more than “Stakeknife” and his collaborators had. This is because the criminal justice system is designed to deal with individual, discrete crimes, not large-scale communal ethnic violence where paramilitary organisations and state agencies are involved, sometimes acting in collusion.

While there are families such as Sean Brown’s who have shown tremendous courage and commitment in pursuing justice through the courts there are many more who, for a wide variety of reasons, will never be able to do so. Even when someone is charged it does not necessarily lead to a conviction, as Kieran Fox, son of murder victim Eamon Fox, discovered last week when a case involving a UVF “supergrass” witness collapsed (News, February 29th). Kieran Fox described the verdict as “heartbreaking”.

We believe that where former combatants, on all sides, are willing to come forward with information, a willingness to have their evidence subjected to verification and a commitment to engage with victims and survivors – if the latter so wish – conditional amnesties should be available. We also accept that the decision to approve the process must rest with the victim’s immediate family.

We believe that such a process should also apply to cases where serious injuries were inflicted, as these account for by far the greater number of cases.

Without an alternative to the courts, reconciliation will be difficult if not impossible to achieve and currents of division and hatred will continue to run under the surface posing a threat to all our futures. – Yours, etc,

PADRAIG YEATES,

Secretary,

Truth Recovery Process,

Dublin 13.