Ms Judith Thompson:

I endorse and wish to comment on some of what the Deputy has said. Every week people who could have benefited from knowing something they wanted to know or from a pension that would have let them live their lives better passes away. In a way, those people pass the baton to the next generation. In those families, it does not go away. People come into my office who are campaigning on behalf of their parents and grandparents. If we ask them who will pick it up if they are not around, they can tell us. It is tragic and it is wrong, but it does not bring an end to the matter.

A lot of work has been done on these bodies. A unit has been set up in the Department of Justice which has done the work of setting out a design template for the new institutions. While it is dispiriting that it is many years since the Eames Bradley report, on the other hand the kernel of what was in that report has stayed in the debate. It was crystallised further in the Haass O'Sullivan report, and what was agreed in Stormont House on these institutions, which are now in draft legislation are the accumulation of much work for a long time. I would not say it is all water under the bridge. I would say it has been a direction of travel. We do have a roadmap. In a sense, our politicians, our Government and our civic society are at a point where they just have to jump, and if we do not do it we will reap the consequences in terms of a failure in justice and in civil society. Having said this, I am frustrated but I am not dispirited. The people I talk to are frustrated and hurt, but they are not packing up their bags and going away, and I do not think these issues will. I believe there is momentum and that we will see progress. What I want to see is progress now. The work has been done and the roadmap has been drawn. It is an act of political will that we need at this point.