Ms Judith Thompson:

I will talk about some of the issues which Senator Craughwell raised on truth and justice and young people. I will ask my colleague Mr. John Beggs to speak about the peace programme and the mental health trauma network and support for young people who are victims of paramilitary violence. I will try to say something about gender and justice impacts.

Starting with gender, I agree that it is an area which is insufficiently explored and understood although it has been explored and we are very aware of the good research has been done. What is significant here historically is that the majority of people who were killed or injured during the Troubles were men. The majority, but by no means all, who were imprisoned were also men. There was a focus on men as those people who experienced violence. In association with each one of those incidents, there were women who brought up families at home in both parts of the community and dealt with a traumatic process of reintegration after separation.

We have one of the highest levels of domestic violence in the UK, and it is something I am very well aware of from my previous work. Last time I looked, looking at assaults and crimes of violence, it was the largest single factor. That includes assault, common assault and things such as criminal damage, where it has happened in the course of a domestic violence incident. We know it is at extremely high levels. At an anecdotal level, we know there is a connection between experience of trauma and domestic violence. I agree with Mr. Hazzard that it is insufficiently understood and researched. I know that in putting together the three research programmes I spoke about, it has been highlighted to us that we absolutely need to look at gender as a factor, both in impact on young people and in mental health trauma and engaging in the past.

Women's lives are shaped and changed through the Troubles just as men's have been. More of those involved, imprisoned and hurt were men, so that it is true that the focus has tended to be towards the men. I acknowledge the point and completely agree with Mr. Hazzard on its importance. We have some sense of it at an anecdotal and intuitive level, we have written it into the specification for our research and it something on which we are focusing.

I referred briefly to the impact on justice. We went through a process which is one of the most successful processes of police reform at the time. There was 50:50 recruitment, the special legislation to do that and a special recruitment process to do this and achieve in the region of 30% from the Catholic community, and around 30% female, which put it ahead of the rest of the UK.

That was a very significant achievement. The courts changed the way they did business and the way they engaged with the public. Judicial appointments were done differently and remain different. The prosecution service changed the way it was organised and changed the way it delivered prosecutions. Police stopped prosecuting cases in court. There was fundamental change across the board with the primary objective of creating a justice system was trusted, acknowledged and owned by all parts of the community. I would not want to completely say that has been dismantled in this case, but people’s trust in the system is being dismantled. Whether I am sitting in Kingsmill, west Belfast or somewhere in between, it is really hard to find victims and survivors who feel we have a justice system with the capacity or the will to do anything for them. That distrust is as corrosive as we knew it was before we went through justice reform.

It is not just me saying this. The Chief Constable has stated repeatedly that he cannot do his job today and deal with the past. He has said that failing to deal with the past is getting in the way of him doing his job today. It is fundamentally and clearly true. We have heard the police ombudsman. That critically important office was set up to create transparency and community trust and broad oversight to the process of policing. Yet, the police ombudsman says he cannot do his job because he is not funded properly. He is also tied up in a courts process which, equally, undermines his ability to do his job. It is a worrying development. We have a Chief Justice who has done a very credible job of taking on a problem not of his making in the coroners’ courts and put together some practical and costed proposals for dealing with a backlog no one thinks is acceptable, namely people waiting 40 years for an inquest. However, there is a lack of funding to tackle that. For everyone across the community in Northern Ireland, this unresolved matter is corrosive for our reformed justice system in the North, of which we were, rightly, proud.

Issues of truth, such as how much, who wants it and what it is, are incredibly difficult philosophical questions which we will never perfectly answer. However, we have an absolute obligation, as a place that is and wishes to be a democracy with a decent justice system, to do the best we can. We must also respect the fact that people have different wishes. As far as one can, one must, therefore, offer them choices and options. At its most fundamental and with regard to historical investigations, it would not be realistic of me to offer people a prospect of lots of successful prosecutions in respect of matters which happened 40 years ago. One has to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt and that is often not possible. However, to say to someone that they should, therefore, forget about it is not the right approach. I hear from all parts of the community that someone in a position of government authority could have prevented the harm that befell a family but it did not happen for reasons not related to that family's best interests. One cannot tell people to forget those things. As such, one needs a process of investigation even if the outcome is information for families and those who need to know rather than prosecutions. I suspect that for the most part, albeit as a justice process and an independent investigatory process, historical investigations will mostly deliver that. It will not tell people everything they want to hear.

It is necessary to provide support for people to engage in the process in an informed way, including mental health and personal support, because this is very difficult even for those who desperately want it. It is usually harder than anticipated. However, that does not mean one takes the option away. One gives people the option and the support so that those who want them can have those reports, even if they do not see a prosecution. I know people who have had HET reports which, with all their flaws. They have told me that while, for example, a son has read it, the person has not. Nevertheless, they acknowledge that they have it and they can choose to read it at some time. Sometimes, that is what people want. Is that truth going to be the whole truth? No. However, one has an obligation to do what is doable and to not sweep things under the carpet. Similarly, it is the case for information retrieval. People have some options. If there is a prosecution, it is a process that is out of the hands of the person who has been wronged. For the most part, this will be about information and reports which a person can choose to have or not. That gives people choices and options, as do information retrieval and the oral history archive. That is the fundamental answer to the Deputy's question. Different people want different things and that is why one provides options and the support to allow them to make those choices.