Mr. Peter Bunting:

I will give the committee a brief history of how we became involved in Maghaberry Prison and in working with the republican prisoners there. Conal McFeely and I were involved in the decommission of the Irish National Liberation Army, INLA, and as a result we built up some credence, perhaps, with other republican groups. We were invited to Maghaberry Prison early in 2010 when a dirty protest was ongoing in the prison. We engaged in a series of negotiations with the prisoners and the prison service. During all that time we consulted with the Irish and British Governments so, to a certain extent, one could call us agents of the British and Irish Governments as well. They were fully informed at all times of what we were doing.

As a result of that, in August 2010 we came to an agreement. Part of it was negotiated in Hillsborough Castle with the British authorities and the then director of the prisons. The interesting aspect of the agreement of August 2010 is that when we finished the negotiations, it was accepted by everybody, to the extent that the prison governor signed the agreement on behalf of the prison authorities and each prisoner in Maghaberry signed. The difficulty is that since then neither side, to a certain extent, has implemented the agreement. We were there for a number of years afterwards. The then Minister of Justice, David Ford, appointed us as facilitators to monitor the implementation of the agreement, along with Rev. Dr. Lesley Carroll and Chris Maccabe, who had been in the Northern Ireland Office. He had previously been director of prisons in Northern Ireland and had experience of the Maze Prison or Long Kesh.

Since then we have been working tirelessly and frustratingly on trying to get the agreement implemented on the premise that, a little like the Lansdowne Road agreement and the current unrest in the Republic, it is the only show in town. We have provided the committee with copies of the 2010 agreement and of the stock-take we undertook two years ago. We have also provided a brief outline of the matters that remain a source of conflict. Our premise is that if there is ever to be peace and an end to political violence in Northern Ireland, the issues in the prison must be resolved. Not solving them gives oxygen and focus to supporters of Óglaigh na hÉireann, the Republican Network for Unity, the Real IRA, the New IRA or whatever IRA it is today to continue their struggle. If we or anybody else are to have an opportunity to wean political people or armed groups back into the political sphere, we must sort out the prison. They will never move as long as they have prisoners in prison getting treated the way people are being treated in Roe House.

Our formula is the one we worked out in the agreement with everybody. We still look forward to the day when it will be implemented fully by both sides. We must accept that it has been thwarted at various times by the prison service, by the political actions of a political party in the Northern Ireland Assembly and, for example, by the murders of David Black and Adrian Ismay. Incidentally, the first time the trade union movement in Northern Ireland protested the murders of prison officers was when I led demonstrations against them in Belfast City Hall.

We have a difficulty and I hope other people will engage on it. I look forward to the questions and answers because this is a terribly important time to have that. A final point should be made. Nothing has happened since May. In May or early June, Conal McFeely, our other two colleagues and I met with the new Minister of Justice, Claire Sugden. It was agreed that day that a review panel, comprising three named individuals, would undertake a fast, expeditious review of the current position of the implementation of the August 2010 agreement. To date, that panel has not been established, so five or six months later there is no engagement. That is frustrating, particularly from the point of view of the prisoners in Roe House.