Mr. Harry Donaghy:

I was born and raised in what is now known as the Lower Falls area of Belfast. I come from a generation who can remember relative peace before the Troubles broke out in 1969.

When we first met Mr. Yeates a number of years ago, the meetings were in camerawith people known as former combatants. Mr. Yeates outlined the principles and rationale for the truth recovery process. I, along with others, certainly found it was something that should definitely be pursued. It helped to ignite conversations that had taken place in the compounds in Long Kesh in the mid-1970s, which we had lost in recent years. We had discussions then about what we were going to do when we finally arrived at a peace process. If peace was declared and accepted, how would we set about constructing new relationships in between and across all of those who had been affected, with victims being a major part of that?

It has been extremely useful and worthwhile to revisit some of those conversations that took place nearly 40 years ago and which took place in the lead-up to the declaration of the ceasefires in 1994 and when arriving at the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. One loyalist friend who I got to know as a boy in Long Kesh asked me where that spirit of goodwill all went to. Any contribution to help in the process of dealing with the legacy of our recent past conducted in the manner outlined by Mr. Yeates has to be positive. I do not think anyone has anything to lose by taking part in it.