Mr. John Howcroft:

I want to follow through on many matters which have been raised. We do not have the correct reference frame to really understand this issue. We use restrictive terminology such as "ex-prisoner". We need to begin to put that matter in context and look at it through the lenses of poverty, social isolation, social injustice and, as Mr. Dunbar stated, rights. These all are important lenses through which to look at this issue.

The figure Professor Shirlow threw out was 40,000. If we multiply that figure by five for dependants such as family members, children and grandchildren, we arrive at a figure of 200,000 persons within the communities on whom there have been secondary impacts in terms of their pension rates and reduced employment options. It does not stop merely with the prisoner but percolates into the wider community. We have never really measured that impact. It is no co-incidence that in the communities from which we come there are high levels of poverty and deprivation and people are effectively prisoners of the past.

A high percentage of those who joined paramilitary organisations and became involved in the conflict went on to become prisoners, but there is also hidden discrimination against former combatants. We can measure some of the discrimination against us, but we are less successful in measuring it against our children that we know occurs. In terms of security forces files still held perhaps on persons in our communities, are they still used? In these terms, there are many perceptions.

All of this occurs against the backdrop of communities that experienced the full spectrum of social injustice in terms of health and education services and unemployment. On the forging of frugal and regressive mindsets within the community that are being expressed, we have described it as a socioeconomic explosive placed in a political vacuum and primed with an identity fuse. Politics is not delivering at the grassroots and identity is used as a camouflage. Politics needs to start to deliver through providing for equal citizenship.