Mr. Raymond McCord:

I would like to see the committee being more vocal about victims from the unionist community. We class victims as victims, not unionist or nationalist. I am from the unionist community, but I do not turn around and speak as a unionist victim. I turn around and speak as a victim. From the outside looking in at how the Irish Government has treated these cases, there has been no call from the Irish Government for inquiries into unionist victims. We have to call a spade a spade when we are sitting here. We are getting the opportunity to say how we feel. All victims should be entitled to an inquiry when they are being treated so badly. All victims should have an inquiry when they have not had an inquest. What the British Government is doing now is saying that not only will there be no prosecutions, but there will be no investigations, inquests or civil actions. When they claimed it was going to help victims to move on, we asked Boris Johnson and Brandon Lewis who told them that. Different victims have different narratives. If somebody has been murdered by the state or a paramilitary organisation, he or she is a victim. It does not make any difference what his or her political belief is, if he or she has got one. Clearly some of the people who have been involved in the Troubles over the years have murdered for the sake of murder, be it the state or the paramilitaries. The British Government has been telling us for years, through academics and political parties, what the best way forward is for my son. The best way to get justice for my son is not to bring in these proposals in any way whatsoever. That is the best way forward for the British Government, but the British Government is there to serve its citizens. We are not there to serve the British Government.

When we speak to political parties - John Finucane was with us at Westminster - they all sign up to the document pledging their support and rejecting the proposals. We really appreciate every person who has put his or her signature to that, but with the exceptions of a couple of them, we have not heard anything back from the politicians who signed it. The only two politicians who have come back to me so I could tell the group what was happening were the Cathaoirleach, Senator Mark Daly, and Senator Emer Currie. The rest of the politicians think that because they have signed the document that their job is done. They get pats on the back for doing it - we appreciate them signing it - but they have to do a lot more than sign a document. They have to tell us what they are going to do if these proposals get brought into Westminster.

Yesterday, we met Mary Lou McDonald. People in Belfast, such as John Finucane, will understand that there are a lot of people in Belfast who would not like people from my community to sit down with Mary Lou McDonald, but she has got a mandate the same as everybody else. The meeting went well. We were asked by victims to ask questions and we asked them at the meeting yesterday. We intend to meet Mary Lou McDonald again. We want to make it quite clear to the victims that we condemn all murders that were carried out in the Troubles. The point I made to Mary Lou McDonald yesterday was that, as somebody from the unionist community, I condemn the murders by the British army no matter where they took place in Northern Ireland. I condemn the murders by people who were involved in the security forces. We saw what happened with the Ulster Defence Regiment, UDR, and the Miami Showband and other cases, and police officers were involved in my son's murder, but I also condemn the murders by the Ulster Defence Association, UDA, the Ulster Volunteer Force, UVF, and the IRA. I do not believe Sinn Féin grasps how victims feel regarding condemnation. I refer to the word "condemnation". They are under pressure not to say the words victims want, in particular from the unionist and nationalist communities. We asked Mary Lou McDonald to condemn the IRA murders. I do not see a problem with somebody saying "I condemn the murders of the IRA", but as John Finucane knows, that is not happening. I pointed out that if Jeffrey Donaldson was sitting in front of us, I would ask him to condemn the murders of the army and the UDR, because he is a former member of the UDR. I emphasised to Mary Lou McDonald that I was not accusing her of being a member of the IRA because she was not, but we want to hear the words from political leaders, not for them to be frightened to name the organisations whose murders they are condemning. We do not want a standard reply saying they condemn all murders. We all condemn all murders, but let us turn around and say we condemn the murders of these groups. That was the only blight on the meeting yesterday. Mary Lou McDonald said to us afterwards yesterday, let us continue this. We said that we are keen to do it.

I take flak from certain elements within the unionist community for meeting Sinn Féin, but unless they are victims, people do not have a right to give me flak. Political people and people who stand on bins - pound-shop lawyers - have no right to criticise anybody who comes to Dublin and they have no right to criticise people who come from Dublin to help people in Northern Ireland to bring some type of peace. I personally welcome the involvement of Dublin in this. I want to see it do more. I want to see the Dublin people turn around and accept the extent to which they have not looked upon the victims in unionism in the same way. When I go to Washington, through Sean McManus and the Irish National Caucus, I am treated as a victim. Sean McManus ensures that and the support he has given us is immense and appreciated. John Finucane knows that it is unique for an Irish Catholic priest to support a Belfast Protestant unionist, but that is the way we think it should be. I want the people in Dublin to turn around and to follow on from what Sean McManus is doing in Washington for victims. We must bring people from both communities to Washington. I said to Mary Lou McDonald yesterday that she should bring unionist people over to Washington with her. She must show that she wants unionist victims of the IRA or republican organisations to get justice as much as she wants victims of the UVF, the UDA and state forces to get justice. That needs to happen.