Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and welcome all the contributors and thank them for their effective and, obviously, heartfelt comments. I wish to make one or two comments. Ms Sandra Peake said that even basic requirements of individuals who have been victims and have gone through terrible trauma, such as housing and adaptation of housing, have not been dealt with. All of us sitting in this room know about the reconciliation, dealing with the present and the past, but we want to deal with the reality, the concerns, and the sufferings of people and the genuine grievances of individuals. Surely, in society and local administration, be it the Northern Ireland Assembly or the British Government, there has been a huge failure if smaller things which are major issues to the individuals concerned, such as basic housing, basic comforts and basic health services, have not been provided for people who have gone through so much trauma. Surely those issues could be dealt with in a meaningful way, apart from the bigger picture of how we resolve and make further progress on the reconciliation. There is absolutely no excuse for administration, be it local authorities, the Northern Ireland Assembly or Westminster, not having in place robust and positive programmes to deal with people's everyday needs in education, social services, health and housing. Those issues should be moved forward rapidly, not left on the back burner for the bigger issues to be dealt with that, unfortunately, will take time to resolve.

Mr. Kenny Donaldson made a suggestion of a public referendum on the definition of a victim. We have it in our Constitution, which was enacted by the people in 1937, that sovereignty resides in the people in our State and questions on major issues which require the law to be changed sometimes have to be put before the people. We have had referenda on major issues, the last being in May on the marriage equality issue. Prior to that, quite a number of our referenda were on European Union issues. By and large, the Government of the day and the Oireachtas - the Dáil and the Seanad - have to vote through a proposal that is then put before the people. In a referendum the people answer either "Yes" or "No" to a particular question. We have had the experience of the debate in advance of referenda being about everything except the question that was before the people. We had it with both the referenda on the Nice and Lisbon treaties where it was stated that people would be conscripted into European armies that did not exist, where some said we would have to give up our neutrality, and where others said we would have to hand over our taxation laws to the European Union, all things that could not be done unless our own people acceded to them because unanimity was required in the European Union. Those issues that were not relevant to the referendum dominated the debate. It would be a very difficult debate on the issue mentioned as one would first have to get political unanimity from whoever. I do not know if the Northern Executive has the authority to put a referendum question to the electorate. That is not straightforward.

A powerful statement made by Mr. Ian Bothwell, which gives us much food for thought, is that people have yet to be heard. We need to get rid of the "yet" out of that sentence.