Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A couple of things have struck me over the course of the day and they came up again during Ms Joly's presentation. I do not ask this to be a smart aleck, but why is there a reluctance to support victims of the conflict in the State? We support groups in the North but not in the South. I do not know why but perhaps the delegates might fill us in. We seem to have a partitionist approach, with huge sympathy for groups and individuals in the North, but when something happens here, the State does not respond. We heard other speakers talk eloquently about how they had felt left behind or were the subject of incompetent investigations. Justice for the Forgotten had the same problem or difficulty with funding before it merged with the Pat Finucane Centre. Why?

People said certain things were not part of an amnesty, but, of all the participants in the negotiations, who is actually looking for an amnesty? As far as I am aware, the only one looking for an amnesty is the British Government, for its own troops who have never served a day in jail on account of their activities. There was co-operation at the height of the conflict between the Garda and the RUC and we are in a new era, a new beginning, but we do not seem to have the same structures and mechanisms whereby the PSNI and the Garda can co-operate to resolve these issues. This also seems to be a contradiction.

My last point concerns how we treat victims. There was mention of the disappeared and people were asked to continue to come forward with information, but it is strange that, even within that group, people were treated differently by the State in terms of supports. Seamus Ruddy was killed in France and there was not the same support for his family as for all of the others. That shocked me when I met the family because I thought everybody was in the same position and received support from the British Government, the Irish Government and political parties but no, the family was cut off from these supports. I do not know if this issue has been resolved to this day. The structure has evolved in this way and it is understandable people feel angry and frustrated. One group stated it did not agree with certain terminology, but what terminology do they want? What are the phrases we should use? We are dealing with the past and the present, but it seems there are political phrases people do not like. Are there phrases on which the victims' groups all agree?