Ms Kathryn Stone:

I thank members for their interest, kind comments and support. When I accepted this role, I did not imagine that I would spend every day - it really is almost every day - meeting people who had been broken by what happened to them during the Troubles. They have been described as being shrunken by sorrow. Many members can recall or know people who have been physically shrunken by their experiences.

There is no doubt that acute and chronic mental health services are of paramount importance. Ms Gildernew, MP, bravely described her experience of being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, some considerable time after the conflict. One conclusion in a piece of research by the commission, a report entitled Troubled Consequences that is available on our website, is that it is a common thing for people to be diagnosed with PTSD and related mental health conditions as many as 20 years after the end of a period of conflict or events causing conflict. These are difficult experiences for people and inform the requirement to plan services carefully to respond to individuals' needs. I have often been reminded that these services must not just be located in city centres. Many people who live in rural areas, particularly along the Border, are profoundly affected in terms of their mental health, their emotional well being and their ability to create and sustain relationships with partners and their children. The transgenerational impact of these mental health conditions is also prevalent and is something on which we must act quickly. During the health presentation, it was mentioned that the population was getting older. Demography is against us. We must work to ensure that people have support.

We must also work quickly to ensure that those who are getting older have access to truth and justice that will help them in their later years. Frequently, I meet people who burn with the frustration of not knowing what happened to their loved ones and of not having the justice that everyone agrees they deserve.

I will address some of the points raised at this meeting. It is important to acknowledge that the review of the Victims and Survivors Service, VSS, has seen buy-in. The service's new board of directors has welcomed the independent assessment of the service and is looking forward to the report, as that will give the board a framework on which to improve and build on the service's foundation. It is not fair to say that the services being provided are inadequate. We must remember that many groups and voluntary organisations have been in existence, often for decades - Ms Margaret Urwin and Ms Bernadette Joly are examples of that - and provide not only emotional support but also practical support and advocacy throughout a justice process, however that might be defined.

I will try to explain how I came to be commissioner, where the commission sits into the Sir Kenneth Bloomfield report and what happened after that. He wrote a report, entitled We Will Remember Them, which was published in 1998. My understanding is that, afterwards, there was a hiatus followed by the appointment of a sole commissioner, Ms Bertha McDougall. It was quickly acknowledged that there needed to be other commissioners representative of different backgrounds. There was a period during which there were four commissioners, one of whom, Mr. Mike Nesbitt, left to follow a political career. When the terms of office of the remaining three commissioners ended I was recruited as a single commissioner.

In his report, Sir Kenneth Bloomfield described the role of a victims commissioner as a painful privilege. As I took up my post, I had no idea what he had meant by that. Eighteen months later, I understand exactly what he meant. My role is, indeed, a painful privilege. My work with victims and survivors inspires me and my team every day to ensure that victims get not only what we expect them to have, but also the services that they deserve.

Some time ago after a difficult and challenging meeting, one of the members of our victims forum sent me an e-mail thanking me for giving her a voice. I hope that by presenting to this committee, we have been able to give victims of the Troubles a voice and that members have understood what some of their primary concerns are. I thank the committee for affording us the opportunity to appear before it.