Mr. Brian Gormally:

The UK has been involved in wars for most of its existence and colonial adventures right up to the present day. I do not expect that we will have complete disclosure of everything that goes on. It is interesting to see what has actually been declassified, and particularly the pattern of consent for public records and so on. Even the documents that have slipped through the built-in process are quite illustrative of some extremely dodgy practices. All we can do is argue for a stronger legislative base for disclosure. We cannot guarantee that State agencies will not stand outside the law. I suppose if one is being cynical one would expect that to a certain extent. All we can do is push and push. What we will get in the legislation is probably not as strong as would like to get in terms of an overall mechanism. Connected to that was the question of what the South can do here. Deputy Seán Conlan talked about disclosure. I think there is a big role in leading by example. If the Irish State says it is prepared to open the books, effectively that throws into sharp relief any reluctance on the part of the UK, which, I think, has probably got a lot more to hide, if it does not do the same.

Again, what could we do here? Deputy Brendan Smith mentioned the necessary independence of the personnel involved in the HIU and included the HET in that connection. One of the issues that has been raised by Government sources in discussions around this whole issue is the difficulty they reckon they will have in recruiting sufficient investigators. They point to the fact that the Police Ombudsman has had a bit of difficulty in recruiting sufficient numbers of people. That is partly because budget cuts and so on mean they will only offer short term contracts to people who are relocating from places such as England, and that makes it difficult. If one pays enough money one will get the investigators. The HIU, in principle, would be open to secondments, including from the Garda Síochána. It seems to me that people could be encouraged to apply and for that to be made a fairly easy process. I have no idea how many would get the positions or what the fallout of that would be. In principle, gardaí could apply to become investigators, but on the basis of secondment so that they would not have to leave their existing careers behind. That is an issue that might be looked at.

Deputy Sean Crowe asked about terminology. The Deputy knows as well as I do that terminology is perhaps one of the most contested things in terms of looking at the conflict. Personally, I do not like the term "dealing with the past," even though in a certain sense it is accurate because, from our point of view, what we say is that we are dealing with current human rights violations by the British state in not fulfilling its obligations under Article 2 to carry out proper investigations. That is a current violation.

It is not to do with the past as such, even though the events that need to be investigated are in the past. Therefore, the terminology a person uses depends on which side he or she comes from and what his or her concerns are. From a human rights perspective, we are dealing with current violations rather than something that is to do with the dim and distant past.