Mr. Mark Thompson:

Yes. It has had a tremendous and incalculable impact. It has retraumatised families. I will go through some figures I asked our senior team for in preparing for this meeting to give some environmental context on the scope of the work we do. We employ 24 full-time staff and are currently recruiting four more staff to bring our complement to just under 30. In addition, we have more than 20 staff who are contracted in on a sessional basis. That includes two clinical psychologists, a team of a dozen trauma counsellors and some complementary therapists who deal with anxiety and stress. We are registered with the appropriate health authorities and accredited to provide counselling and psychotherapy as a centre of excellence. In the past year - I will correct the figure in our opening statement; I was corrected last night - we supported 4,900 people. I will give a sense of a few things. We deliver support from several sites across the North and remote support is given across the island and these islands for people who have been impacted and have left the North. To give a sense of it to the committee, since the Bill came about and became the Act it is now, there has been a total increase of referrals for mental health support of 310%; the total increase in suicidal ideation has been 600%; and waiting lists for counselling and psychotherapy went from six weeks to eight months. This is not a trend that is unique to Relatives for Justice which supports victims. It is happening for all groups in the sector. Most people cite the fact that hope has been taken away. People were asked and encouraged out by many initiatives from Eames-Bradley, to Haass-O'Sullivan, to the Police Ombudsman's office, to the Historical Enquiries Team and all such agencies. Then there was hope about the criminal justice system with the devolution of criminal justice and policing and the appointment of an attorney general. There are thousands of cases. The ombudsman had more than 450 cases that met the grave and exceptional threshold and warranted investigation which constitute slightly more than 500 killings; some 1,100 civil actions were lodged in the court; there are up to 40 inquests and applications for approximately 60 inquests with the attorney general; more than 1,300 cases sit with the PSNI's legacy investigation branch, LIB; and that continues. That will give the committee a flavour. The shutters have effectively come down on all of those - they are finished - and that has left families in crisis and retraumatised.

Families describe it as a form of torture. This is what we call additional harms on top of harms. Families who were bereaved and people who were seriously injured were promised justice using the mechanisms provided through the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement and the rule of law to seek remedy and accountability. That has now been taken away in one sweep. We sit in a jurisdiction in a western democracy and in part of it families whose loved ones have been murdered have no remedy whatsoever. That is having a huge traumatic effect on families, including anxiety, trauma, suicidal ideation and mental health problems. The repercussions of this Bill are hugely significant. It is a hidden aspect of this. We focus on dealing with the Bill, but the impact on families in their homes is colossal.