Ms Judith Thompson:

I will pick up on some of Senator Feighan's issues. I spoke about different victims' voices being used to add legitimacy to divergent political views. This ends up in a situation where it appears that the victims cannot agree and where the issue becomes a political battle on territory that is people's lives and experiences. Often those people have said to me that "Look, nobody spoke to me before I was used as an example of what this or that person did." I believe, from my experience, that if one puts people together who have suffered harm, they will broadly agree with one another and will understand one another's experience. For example, regardless of who they may want to see held accountable, whoever it is, it is a fair transparent and properly resourced justice system or legacy institutions that will deliver that for them. If a person has suffered trauma, he or she wants a decent trauma network. If a person has suffered harm and wants truth then he or she wants truth. It does not matter who harmed the person, but it is those other things that he or she will want to have. It is not victims and survivors who cannot agree; it is in fact a problem for victims and survivors that they become the battleground over which different political narratives are fought. It is to the detriment of their best interests because too often, the political narratives get locked and the actual individuals who are waiting for legislation, pensions and services are still waiting.

It is important to stop using victims to illustrate or add weight to differing political perspectives and accept that, broadly, whether it is legislation, policy or services, what people who have been harmed want to see in place is an agreed core. Of course, there are things on which people do not agree. We are all different. However, there is an agreed core and a range of options that could meet most people's needs. What are we doing about it? First, the forum in itself embodies that in the fact that we have brought 23 people together from completely diverse backgrounds with completely diverse experiences. They have demonstrated the ability to engage in a respectful conversation about what they agree and disagree on and to adopt a shared position on dealing with the past. That is a model of leadership, which is what we need to see on a broader civic level.

There are also some very harmful consequences of the political polarisation of the issue. I am not pointing in any one direction – it happens across the board. What happens is that one finds a victim constituency, which may not see itself as a constituency but may be seen that way by those outside it, being held to represent a particular political view. Those of another view do not then respect the harm and experience of those people. If I am not making sense there, I mean that when victims find themselves turned into an emblem or symbol for a particular political belief, they often find that people of different political beliefs are disrespectful of their experience or sometimes blame them. That has happened to victims and survivors wherever they come from. They would understand from each other's point of view that it is never okay to do that. Queen's University has been doing a piece of a work for a year to which we have been connected. It looks at what it calls "voice, agency and blame". In many senses, it is unpicking some of those difficult issues. One part of that project will involve coming up with guidelines for media and others in the public realm as to how to use and not use victims and victims' issues in the process of putting across a point of view or holding a debate. We believe that is an incredibly important project. The forum has been involved in it and I am encouraging other victims, individuals and groups who have been particularly upset by things that have happened over recent months to get engaged with it also. We hope the guidelines can be something more than simple guidelines but may, in fact, be a charter we would ask people to sign up to. It is very important to establish that victims and survivors have a lot of common ground. That common ground is important stuff for everyone to engage with to move forward as a society. It is not all right to derive legitimacy or impact in media or politics by using the experiences of people who will be adversely affected.