Mr. Kevin Mulgrew:

I am chairperson of Coiste na nIarchimí, a group that supports former provisional IRA prisoners. Ms Avila Kilmurray set the context for this very well and I will be as brief as possible but I want to cover a number of points on behalf of our constituent part in the Prison to Peace and Conflict Transformation from the Bottom Up network. This is the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and I was heartened by what Deputy Frank Feighan said, namely, that it is a powerful committee. I do not mean to be smart but 15 years on from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, I have to ask why has it not been implemented and why a number of the promises made in it and in the St. Andrews Agreement have not been implemented. The Good Friday Agreement stated: "The Governments continue to recognise the importance of measures to facilitate the reintegration - I have an issue with the word "reintegration" - of prisoners into the community by providing support both prior to and after release, including assistance directed towards availing of employment opportunities, re-training and/or re-skilling, and further education." A Bill went through these Houses which denies work to republican ex-prisoners. A Bill, to which Deputy Martin Ferris alluded, went through Stormont which provides that somebody can be a Minister but cannot be a special adviser. There is a great deal of nonsense about this.

I wish to comment on a few issues that were raised. We have written a fairly length submission to the Haass talks, the details of which I will not go into as it has been forwarded to them. The submission set out clearly the political, historical context of colonialism. We make no bones about that, that is where the conflict arose, but whether people can agree or disagree with actions, that is a different day's work.

Ms Avila Kilmurray prepared a paper which is very helpful. The number of republican ex-prisoners, and indeed loyalist ex-prisoners, vary from 15,000, as some people have said, to 40,000, as stated in some reports. The figure of 40,000 comes from the British Home Officer and that excludes the period up to 1971 where there would have been several thousand people involved. It is a massive number of people. As Ms Avila Kilmurray stated in her document, when the families are taken into account, we are talking about a constituency of more than 200,000 people. That is a massive constitutency of people affected by political imprisonment.

"Reintegration" is not a word that republican ex-prisoners would use. We understand people use different language and that is their language. We would see ourselves as part of communities who have returned to communities. While we have certainly settled back in again, "reintegration" is not a word that republicans would use.
I wish to comment on some of the issues mentioned. With regard to political imprisonment and conflict-related convictions - again, this is language we use, and it is not criminal- but conflict-related convictions - this is included in employers' guidelines. A committee in Stormont had to draw up guidelines for employers. They have not been adopted by all employers, although some have adopted them. Therefore, there has been some progress and that is the language used.

Anyone who has had a political conviction will have issues around employment, education, voluntary work, financial services even up to including pensions in that if a person is in jail there is not a continuance of his or her contributory pension. The issue of ageing poverty has arisen. Republic ex-prisoners, and I am sure the same applies to loyalist ex-prisoners, constitute an ageing population; they are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. That is the reality of the numbers involved and of the issues.

On the issue of travel, political ex-prisoners have been refused travel. I know some of this is outside the remit of this group but it should be lobby on this issue. The USA, Canada and New Zealand will refuse travel to political ex-prisoners. We met representatives of the Australian Embassy and we had a positive response from them. The irony, as we pointed out, is that the their founding fathers were political prisons and that argument was not lost on them. We had a good meeting and they have been very positive since it.

Ms Avila Kilmurray has also touched on adoption and fostering. Licences are also an issue, people can be arrested again and it can be written on their licence without any due regard to any evidence. It is crazy and it is causing untold problems in the North. If there is evidence against people that is one thing, but where people are arrested and no evidence is shown, that is creating problems and giving succour people who are opposed to the Good Friday Agreement.

Some of the issues on which I have touched are outside the remit of this committee but most of them are within it. I cannot understand some of the provisions of legislation that has been introduced in the past 15 years and neither can our group understand it. We are fully behind the process. The war is over. We are treated differently from former combatants. Former combatants are not asked where they were during the 1970s or 1980s - they can travel, but we cannot. We need to deal with those issues.

With regard to some of the things we have asked for in the Haass talks, and we are very clear about this, we have said that there needs to be an expunging of convict-related convictions. The war is over, it is over and let us deal with it. Not only are political ex-prisoners refused travel, their partners - we have documentation on this and we would be happy to pass it on to the committee - were refused travel because they were on the same ticket, children have been refused travel and in the last week grandchildren have been refused travel because of their parents or a parent having been sentenced as a result of the conflict in the North in the 1970s. That is the time to which the sentence date back. We are calling for the expunging of convict-related convictions. We are also calling for - dare I use the word - an amnesty. The expunging of records deals with those who have been in prison and an amnesty deals with those who may face prison. We heard the latest comments yesterday from the Attorney General in North which caused concern, but the reality is that there has been a de facto amnesty for British forces. Five of them went to prison and three of them are still in the British Army. There is a disparity in how former combatants are dealt with.

I wish finish on this note as I know others want to speak. There is a process called "DDR2", demobilisation, demilitarisation and reinsertion. It is used in most conflicts around the world. It is a process that is used before those involved proceed to elections and the working outs post-conflict. It did not happen here. I understand it did not happen here because the Good Friday Agreement probably would not have been negotiated had that been pushed but that is what is used in countries. There have been 550 plus amnesties granted since 1945 across the world. There were amnesties granted in this State after the Civil War. There has been a history of amnesties having been granted; it is not something new. There was a recent provision in respect of the UN which states in regard to amnesties that an amnesty cannot be a blanket amnesty as that is illegal but if an amnesty is tied into weapons being put beyond use and tied into demobilising armies, then it is that. There is detail on this. These are the hard questions. I know people say "amnesty" and then shy away from it but the reality is that the British state, the other side of this conflict, has had de facto amnesty.