Mr. Kenny Donaldson:

My point is that I am a victims' representative and our organisation has a very clear position on that in terms of who we invite and work with. We have Unionists, Nationalists and neither. We have people from the Protestant and Catholic communities and from none. They are right across the board.

We have been exercised for five years on the point that Mr. Stack raised. In our last presentation to this committee two years ago we were fighting for the rights of Republic of Ireland-based victims along with those based in Great Britain. Within the Stormont House Agreement there is supposed to be a collaborative approach taken by Belfast, Westminster and Dublin except when it comes to the jingoes, the resources, because this side of the Border is not very good at that. There is lip service paid to the issues. There is a need to conduct a deep study and mapping exercise of where victims and survivors are located in the Republic of Ireland as there is to do likewise in Great Britain.

We talk about deaths when we bring it down to those cold, hard percentages. One in six lives lost in the Troubles was of a person associated with Great Britain who was either murdered there or had family members murdered here and who was from Great Britain. Likewise, in the Republic upwards of 90 innocent people lost their lives as a result of the Troubles. That is not insignificant. There is work that needs to be done.

The point concerning what constitutes a victim needs to be addressed. People should take a whistlestop tour back to where this emanated from. No one on this side of the table had a view as to what the definition of victim should be. In 2006 it was ushered through in emergency legislation. That was another side deal agreed at the time which caused damage and harm to people when it was rolled out. A widow once put it to me in these terms: "It is bad enough that my husband was taken. In 1998 I voted for the Belfast Agreement because I wanted a better future for my grandchildren, but eight years later, for those individuals who were released from prison that day to in effect be equated in law alongside my husband was the ultimate betrayal." That issue needs to be considered.

Our organisation has always been very clear that terrible deeds were committed by loyalist terrorists, and there were actions committed by the State which were unforgivable. The Republic of Ireland is no neutral arbitrator in proceedings either. As a representative of a victims group, I have no difficulty in saying that where there was criminal violence committed, whether by the proscribed organisations or indeed by either State, it was illegitimate and wrong. If that was said right across the board we would have the building block to deal with these issues properly. We do not have it because people are still in denial and are trying to justify the indefensible. We need to condemn violence as wrong across the board.