Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 2 December 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement

Engagement with Justice for the Forgotten

Mr. Alan Brecknell:

I agree with the Senator. From our perspective, this is not just about the families we represent; it is about the wider victim and survivor community out there. We need to take a victim-focused approach to this. People have waited over 50 years for information. We have rightly seen the Ballymurphy inquest recently where the whole narrative of those three or four days is now different from what was known as the narrative of the past and the story from the past. It goes to prove that these things can happen and it goes to prove how important it is. Again, I make the point that it is not just about the families we represent as it is about the bigger victim and survivor community. It is also about society. We need to know what happened here and we need to know why it happened. We need to ensure it does not happen again. We need to ensure we do not pass the trauma and the pain of the past 30 years on to another generation and maybe a generation after that. Whether the British Government likes it or not, this is not going away. It is getting passed on to people and younger people are taking up the fight for their families. That has to be realised.

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