Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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209. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade his plans to ensure the implementation of the truth recovery elements of the Stormont House Agreement, and services for victims and survivors. [15178/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The Government believes that addressing the legacy of the past is essential to further progress towards reconciliation in Northern Ireland. For this reason, the Stormont House Agreement provides for the establishment of a number of important new mechanisms, including an Independent Commission on Information Retrieval, an Oral History Archive and an Implementation and Reconciliation Group to oversee themes, archives and information recovery across the framework for dealing with the legacy of the past.

In addition, the Agreement provides for a an independent Historical Investigations Unit, which will take forward investigations into outstanding Troubles-related deaths from the former PSNI Historical Enquiries Team process and the legacy work of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. It provides further for the Northern Ireland Executive to take appropriate steps to improve the way the legacy inquests function is conducted in Northern Ireland to comply with European Convention on Human Rights Article 2 requirements. The Agreement sets out that processes dealing with the past should be victim-centred and emphasises the importance of providing services and support to victims and survivors.

The efficient and expeditious implementation of the Stormont House Agreement in its totality is a key focus for the Government. On 27 March I participated in a second implementation and review meeting of the Agreement in Belfast with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Executive Parties. It was a useful opportunity to take stock of progress, including in relation to our ongoing work in relation to the establishment of the mechanisms for dealing with the past. Regular meetings are also taking place at official level to bring forward this complex work and good progress is being made.

The next review of the Stormont House Agreement meeting is scheduled to take place in June. A six-monthly update on progress on implementation of the Agreement is due to be published at that time, in accordance with the review and monitoring provisions of the Agreement.

The Government remains committed to playing its part in ensuring the full implementation of the Stormont House Agreement.