Ms Kate Turner:

I too thank the committee for the opportunity to speak and welcome its consideration of these important but difficult issues. As an organisation which has been looking at legacy issues relating to the conflict for over 15 years, we are often credited with initiating the debate on them. However, we only developed this work because that was what people were responding to and asking for, across a range of groups and backgrounds, back in 1999 and 2000. We realised that when offered a safe space and freedom from external control, people wanted to discuss the legacy of the conflict. That debate focussed on what we needed to do for victims and survivors, for society and in order to be able to work together.

In 2002 Healing Through Remembering, HTR, carried out a public consultation asking, “How should we remember the conflict in and about Northern Ireland and in so doing help individuals and society to be healed?” As a result of the response to this consultation we focussed our work in five particular areas of dealing with the past, namely, commemoration; day of reflection; living memorial museum, storytelling or personal narrative; truth recovery and acknowledgement.

HTR is a membership-led organisation. The membership includes people who describe themselves as victims or survivors, ex-combatants, former members of the security forces, clergy, academics, community workers, politicians and housewives. These members decide on the activities the organisation undertakes in consideration of these areas of concern. Over the last 12 years we have held hundreds of facilitated workshops and discussion meetings; a number of conferences with local and international input; both open and private conversations on difficult aspects of dealing with the past; and a range of local and international study visits. We have produced over 30 discussion documents; a dozen short films; a drama; pop-up street theatre; walking tours; and an exhibition of everyday objects transformed by the conflict, which was initially travelling and later static.

Key to all HTR's work is not answers to these difficult questions. What right do we as a group, albeit of diverse backgrounds and committed to the issues, have to come up with definitive answers? Rather, the emphasis has been on enabling robust conversations, considering possibilities and developing principles to guide discussions and work in these areas. In particular we have produced “Ethical Principles for Storytelling and Personal Narrative”, “Core Principles for Dealing with the Past” and “Are we there yet?”, which includes benefits and challenges for each of our key areas of work which we feel need to be addressed. Copies of each of those documents are available for all members. I sound like somebody else - "One for everyone in the audience".

The outstanding legacy issues are that we need to find better ways of meeting the needs of those who have suffered most in, and since, the conflict. We can never offer them justice, closure or complete well-being. How could we ever achieve that after what people have suffered? However, we can, and should, do a lot more to address their particular needs. We also need to recognise that their needs and concerns may change over time, over generations, or as they gain or learn more from existing processes. There is also an outstanding issue of what we as a society need to understand and learn from the conflict, which is hampered by the historic issues of lack of trust, suspicion and lack of engagement. In order to do our best to ensure "never again", we need to find ways as a society to better deal with our conflictual past.

The success of HTR shows what is possible in this difficult area. We are proof that people of different opinions, political viewpoints and backgrounds relating to the conflict can work together and find ways to build a better future even while still disagreeing on the past.