Mr. Austin Stack:

I will just go through the few issues that pertain to me. In response to Senator Craughwell's question about where we find ourselves if the perpetrator comes in and bares his soul but the family does not accept what has been said, I am a restorative justice practitioner. I have been doing it for a long time. Miss Walshe from Glencree and I have been involved in that movement for a long time. We can never guarantee going into that process that everyone will come out hugging and kissing one another. There is a long period of preparation with both parties before that meeting would take place. Both parties would have a good sense of what would play out when it does happen. For example, I facilitated a very difficult restorative meeting recently between two individuals and it took me approximately two months to prepare it, going back and forth. We went into the room with the two individuals. When I went into the room I was still unsure whether the perpetrator was going to make that leap. I knew that the victim was a very strong individual. I facilitated that meeting but I kept going back and all of a sudden the penny dropped and the perpetrator understood because of a remark the victim made that personalised it a little bit. If there is a good facilitator little things can happen in these meetings that can turn them around. One can never be sure that will happen. I propose that we at least try because if we do not try we will never have healing. This is for all of us here in the room, the politicians, the policymakers, the victims and their advocates to at least try.

There was a question about the 28% who cannot move on or do not want to get involved in this process. We need to try to put supports in place for those people such that at some stage down the line they may come around because we are all at different stages on the journey. I can forgive the people who did what they did to my father. I have no problem saying that. I will shake their hands and talk to them. I have forgiveness. I can do that. Some people cannot and never will. It is a journey.

In respect of what Francie Molloy said about our group, we take everybody who we would describe as an innocent from both sides of the political perspective. We are open to people from the Unionist side and the Nationalist side. We will not deal with anyone who was a perpetrator of terrorism. That is our membership. Generally it is people from the South who have come to us.

In response to what Deputy Sherlock said about legislation on how amnesties would work, I would propose that, once the process is finished and the family proposes that the individual be given an amnesty because the individual has dealt with them in an honest, open and truthful fashion, when the chair of the commission makes a report, the legislation could then be formed in some way that closes the matter. The committee members are the legislators and they know best the angles involved in that process. As a simple layman that is what I would propose.

In response to Deputy Breathnach's question about services North and South the difference is stark. We get absolutely no help, aid, support, good, bad or indifferent on this end. We get zero. I went to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and spoke to a high-level delegation on this matter and they told me that when the Good Friday Agreement was being negotiated they specifically left out this element for victims in the South because they said we could go to the Health Service Executive, HSE, for support. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will not fund groups down South. It diverts funds to the groups in the North. The only funding of any description that we get is a very small grant each year from the Victims & Survivors Service in the North. Only recently did people such as the gardaí who were badly injured in the Garryhinch bombing benefit from the scheme whereby injured personnel could get something from the Victims & Survivors Service in the North. Groups down here have been told they need to go to the HSE. That is completely impractical because the HSE is not set up to deal with victims of terrorism. They do not know what is involved. I have seen how groups like South East Fermanagh Foundation, SEFF in the North work. When the group gets together members support and help one another. They are able to identify the services and the needs of their people and bring them to the agencies required. There are between 80 and 90 victims down here, dispersed all over the country and we are told to go to the HSE.