Holywell Trust Conversations

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S2 - Episode 16 - Ian Marshall Aug 03, 2020

Show notes

’The unity conversation needs to be open, transparent, and let's keep open minds, because we need to flesh out what Irish unity would look like and what the UK union would look like’

Ian Marshall is a beef farmer, a former dairy farmer, and was president of the Ulster Farmers Union from 2014 to 2016. But more significantly he was until earlier this year a senator in Ireland’s Oireachtas – a unionist in Ireland’s second legislative chamber. A quite remarkable situation. Many observers were disappointed – as was Ian – that he was not elected back into the Seanad’s agricultural panel, nor appointed on the lists of new Taoiseach Micheál Martin or the other coalition party leaders Leo Varadkar and Eamon Ryan. Ian was speaking in the latest Forward Together podcast from the Holywell Trust.

He reflects on his initial election. “The opportunity was something I hadn’t anticipated or prepared for. It was a fascinating two years. I work in Queen’s, so I have an office in Belfast that's 104 miles from the office I had at Leinster House. The reality is that it's light years in understanding. It's light years because the people in Belfast have very little knowledge of Dublin, of the South, of what goes on. There's an equal lack of knowledge in Dublin as regards Belfast, about Northern Ireland and the culture, which seems bizarre because we're a small island and we're neighbours.”

Despite this, Ian felt much more welcomed in the Seanad than he expected. “I was nervous. I was always told that Dublin was a cold house for unionism. But it was a warm reception. It was very welcoming. And I was told that you're a Northern unionist, be very proud of your identity, you’re not here to be any more than that. So from the first day, inside Leinster House, it was very warm, welcoming.”

Some unionists were reportedly unhappy that someone from their background and affiliation went to Dublin to sit in the Oireachtas. “The reality was that there was some noise from some individuals, but not very much,” recalls Ian. “The vast majority of political leaders were very supportive. Privately, they were very supportive of me. They thought that we needed dialogue with Dublin... the private conversations were very positive, upbeat and supportive.”

Ian reflects that much needs to be done to connect the two jurisdictions. “I learned that there is still a lot of work to do, still a lot of bridge building to do.... We're 22 years on from the signing of the Belfast Agreement and we're in a truly global marketplace now. There are huge benefits working together across an island, which should present no threat to anyone's constitution. I see huge opportunity. I see a generation of people coming on who have never experienced the Troubles, who haven't experienced the sectarianism, the bigotry, the hatred that many of us grew up in, which is a breath of fresh air. And I believe that's the future. The younger people who are coming on who don’t carry this baggage and certainly don't have the prejudices that many of the older generation may have.”

One of the false perceptions Ian met in Dublin was that unionists are unable to enjoy themselves. “When I first went to Dublin and I spoke to a number of people who said, oh, you're a northern unionist. We assume a number of things about you. You're very conservative. And you wouldn't take a drink, you wouldn't have fun. I said, no, we’re actually a very open minded bunch. We're not at all conservative, we are forward looking. So I think there's a lot of misconceptions of Northern unionists.

“The misconception that I pick up in Northern Ireland about the South is that there’s this appetite by everyone to have Irish unity. Certainly there are many, many people who want to strive for Irish unity, which they are perfectly entitled to do, but equally there are many, many people south of the border who say, you know what, not at the moment.

“I think the best analogy was someone in Leinster House who said to me that the Irish unity question was a bit like heaven. That sounds like a really good idea, but we're not ready for it now…. For most people it is about uniting people across the island.”

He argues: “The way you unite people is to bring people together. So that's by virtue of organisations, sport, for example rugby. Rugby has presented a platform where irrespective of whether you're from a nationalist background, a unionist background, a loyalist background, or a republican background, everyone follows the Irish rugby team. It presents no threat to anyone's culture, identity and the model would be something that unites people as well as rugby does. We can replicate that through other parts of society. So I think this is about uniting people, uniting young people, getting schools to work together.

“Businesses already work together. There's a huge all-Ireland economy, which can be so much greater. And I think that we need to do that in conjunction with an acknowledgement that North-South relations are hugely important, but equally so are the East-West relations, because those are important as we go forward, looking at how we build two islands working together.”
Perhaps a more surprising observation from Ian is that his experience of the Seanad has made him a strong supporter of second chambers – despite the proposal to scrap the Seanad only seven years ago. “What I've learned in the last two years is the importance of an upper house,” he says. “The interesting thing is that we have a Senate chamber in Belfast, in Parliament Buildings. We used to have senators. I think there's huge value in reinstating an upper house... [as] a scrutinising body. It's a governance structure. It will cross reference, check legislation. It will perform a task of scrutinising the legislation that comes before it... [We could] use an upper house [in Stormont] as a mechanism to drive good governance, good government.”

Ian is committed to improving engagement across the political divide, within Northern Ireland and cross-border. “There needs to be a constitutional conversation,” he says. “The difficulty is effectively the conversation has been presented in such a way as this is a conversation about Irish unity. And the analogy I draw is that it's like going to turkeys to have a discussion about Christmas dinner and what stuffing they would like - why on earth would a turkey ever get involved in that conversation?

“So for me, the unity conversation needs to be open, transparent, and let's keep open minds, because we need to flush out what the Irish unity situation would look like, what the maintenance of the UK union would look like, how the island would function. How would it affect education, healthcare, society, how would businesses function, would we ultimately be richer or poorer? In the absence of that conversation, it's a very dangerous conversation to have...

“You need to present all the information to people, so that people know what it would look like, so that people can judge whether they will be richer or poorer, better or worse off. And then, and only then at that point, it's perfectly reasonable to ask those people to take a vote on that.”

This latest podcast in the second Forward Together series is available here on the website of peace and reconciliation charity Holywell Trust. It is funded by the Community Relations Council’s Media Grant Scheme.

Disclaimer: This project has received support from the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council which aims to promote a pluralist society characterised by equity, respect for diversity, and recognition of interdependence. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Community Relations Council.

S2 - Episode 15 - Will Glendinning Jul 27, 2020

Show notes

‘A united Ireland that is socially liberally, tolerant, European and economically successful is attractive’

Irish unity could be an attractive option if the new nation is socially liberal, outward looking, multi-cultural, European and economically successfully, while respecting both the Irish and British cultures and traditions, believes Will Glendinning. To be economically successful it may need support from both the European Union and the United States, he adds. Will is a former chief executive of the Community Relations Council, has been an Alliance Party MLA for West Belfast and was also a member of the UDR. He was talking in the latest Forward Together podcast from the Holywell Trust.

Will’s family history brings together different traditions of Northern Irish politics. His great grandfather on his father’s side was Sir Robert Glendinning, a Liberal MP at the beginning of the 20th Century, who was a supporter of Home Rule for Ireland. But a grandfather on his mother’s side was a Unionist MP in Stormont, who had opposed Home Rule. “There was a marriage that occurred in the middle of the schism,” he observes.

It might be argued that there is something of a parallel between the point in history that debated Home Rule and contemporary politics, where Irish unity is beginning to be actively considered. It is a topic Will is seriously engaged in. He has concluded that a change in the constitutional settlement could be positive. “I have reached the position that someone from my background could see myself voting for a united Ireland, or for a new Ireland, if what was on offer was beneficial.”

Will explains: “During my time in politics, I always argued for the issue of consent. That was one of the big advantages I saw for the Good Friday Agreement, that the issue of consent was fully recognised and indeed that consent was an all-Ireland consent. The thing that I think is important in this debate is that unionism was given an opt-out from any all-Ireland structures because it saw itself as a minority in the island of Ireland.

“But the problem for unionism is that it never treated the minority in its own midst with the generosity it should have done… and indeed opposed issues of equality all the way through the development of fair employment laws, and right up to same sex marriage and abortion.”

Will is concerned that, despite this, republicans need, where they have power in local or central government, to demonstrate a much greater generosity of spirit towards unionists than was shown to them.

“That's one of the reasons why I was very taken with Seamus Mallon’s book ‘A Shared Home Place’, because he argued very strongly that if there is to be a change in the constitutional nature, the danger is that it is 50% plus one and that therefore you end up with a [disaffected] minority in the island of Ireland….

“Mallon doesn't argue that you have to have a majority of unionists. What he does argue is that you have to have a sufficient number of unionists. I would take an analogy back to another change process that we had to undergo, which was the change in policing. Policing, if it is if it is to be effective, needs to be by consent rather than by force. One of the big changes was a whole change in structure from the RUC to the PSNI, a whole change in ethos, changes of symbols and also changes in the recruitment process to bring about an increase in the number of people from the Catholic and nationalist community into the PSNI.

“Now we can argue about how effective or ineffective that has been - numbers inside the police still do not reflect the make-up of the of the population. But I think before we come to a point where we have a referendum, we need to have the discussion about what the new Ireland would look like - in the same way that in the Republic they had discussions over the same sex marriage referendum and particularly over the abortion referendum, where they developed a consensus on what was on offer – [in the same way there must be discussion] across the island about what was is on offer [in a new Ireland], and only then do you reach the position of having a referendum on any future. So, in other words, you know what is possible.

“From a unionists’ point of view, to enter into those conversations it needs to be recognised that they are entering into them in a position where they can come out the other end – if they go in knowing they are going to lose, whether it is five-nil or three-two, is not a way for those conversations to take place.”

As discussion has advanced over the possible form of Irish unity, so the question arises whether Stormont should be retained or abandoned – and if it is retained whether it should be for the existing six counties of Northern Ireland or the nine counties of the Ulster province – and whether the other provinces should also have their own legislative assemblies. Will argues: “There would still need to have a devolved legislature inside Northern Ireland…. There would need to be a recognition of the position of the monarch.

“And, also, there would need to be, as with the unification of Germany, a guarantee of funding for a period of time until the two economies got together. A further thing, there would need to be discussion of the issue of dealing with the past, through the 1960s and 1970s, up to the 1990s.”

Will believes that politicians present more of a barrier to progress than people within the communities of Northern Ireland. “I have seen many examples of situations where people from very different backgrounds have been prepared to listen and talk, to hear the stories from the other side. And I think that sometimes, actually the community is further along than the politicians are. I recognize that that is not the case in the most deprived areas. Not in the case sometimes in areas where the degrees of segregation, etc., remain as high as they did [during the Troubles].”

S2 - Episode 14 - Julie-Anne Corr-Johnston Jul 20, 2020

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“You can’t rely on a political culture of respect when one doesn’t actually exist”

Unionists should engage in the conversation around the proposal for a Bill of Rights, recognising that it can help protect their interests and human rights, says former Progressive Unionist Party councillor Julie-Anne Corr-Johnstone. She was talking in the latest Forward Together podcast from the Holywell Trust.

“I think human rights themselves are important because they help protect against abuse by those who are more powerful”, says Julie-Anne. A Bill of Rights can also be used as a means of fighting corruption, she suggests.

“No society is perfect, not least Northern Ireland. A Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland in my opinion is important for a number of reasons. First, the primary reason, is that it was mandated for by the people of Northern Ireland via the Belfast Agreement referendum and all the subsequent agreements that came on the back of that. The objective was to entrench those human rights that we all enjoy. It built on a rights-based society that was emerging from conflict and which was one with a history of political bias and discrimination.”

She stresses that the Progressive Unionist Party – she is a former member – has for a long period “been very strongly supportive of a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights - and we have engaged on that subject. We had various engagements with the Human Rights Commission, with the Equality Commission, and we support the work that they do within Northern Ireland.”

Yet there is a strong perception in parts of unionism that a Bill of Rights is a demand of republicans and nationalists and therefore not in the interests of loyalists and unionists. This is a mistake, Julie-Anne believes.

“It hasn't always been seen through the lens of sectarian divisions,” she insists. “The very concept of a Bill of Rights pre-dates the Good Friday Agreement / the Belfast Agreement and was lobbied for at one point by unionist parties, going back to the 1970s I think. It has had over the years had intermittent support. But [unionism] has moved towards a position of being in favour of a UK-wide Bill of Rights, rather than Northern Ireland-specific. I think that is largely the result of the psychological and physical barriers that have emerged post-Good Friday Agreement.”

For many unionists it was comments by Gerry Adams about using demands for equality to “break” unionism that made the call for a Bill of Rights so contentious. Yet the reality is that many working class loyalist communities are seriously deprived and might be among the very people most likely to benefit from a recognition of socio-economic rights, access of high quality healthcare and housing and equality in education provision.

Describing herself as a “pragmatic unionist”, Julie-Anne rejects the idea that a Bill of Rights could advance the cause of Irish unity, suggesting instead that the absence of one weakens the Union. The words of Adams created the psychological barrier to engagement by many unionists in discussions around a Bill of Rights, while “institutionalised sectarianism” in Northern Ireland society provides the physical barrier to engagement.

“Every election in Northern Ireland is a constitutional show of strength, rather than a mandate for social-economic change. I think that for unionists like myself who measure the strength of the Union not by any political party’s electoral strength, but by the social-economic wealth and the quality of life that citizens here enjoy, it is paramount to securing the future of the Union that we move to bring into play a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights.”

Julie-Anne continues: “Socio-economic inequalities and disadvantages don't have a nationality or religious background or sexual orientation. They present themselves and their effects across society and that's a problem for us all. I think that rights-based approaches should be apolitical….That's the right approach in terms of finding the right balance for us all.”

She continues: “A Bill of Rights transcends that civil liberties, social freedoms, political liberties and security [approach]. It encompasses a rights-based approach to deprivation and social and economic inequality that in my view would strengthen the Union.”

Julie-Anne stresses: “It is well documented that Protestant boys are those most disadvantaged in the education system. And I think that a Bill of Rights would help further advance their cause and place a moral obligation on those who are charged with leading that department and those in the Executive, providing mechanisms for accountability when those standards have been contravened.”

She argues that the Belfast Agreement / Good Friday Agreement was clear that it intended a Bill of Rights to supplement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – yet it has still failed to do so. “I believe that what was proposed was ideal. They have the draft for it.” However, “the Bill of Rights is not going to be a magic wand.” She adds: “There are other international legal obligations that governments have in terms of human rights.”

Julie-Anne asserts: “You can’t rely on a political culture of respect when one doesn’t actually exist. If we had this Bill of Rights it would allow our political parties to deal with issues, rather than negotiate them.” That, along with the proper application of the ministerial code of conduct, might avoid the periodic breakdowns of government here that have characterised our system since the restoration of devolution.

But it would be naïve to ignore the reality that the concept of rights are not always simple and objective. The discussions around single sex marriage and what might either be termed abortion or women’s reproductive rights illustrate that – and place Julie-Anne on a different side of the debate to much of unionism’s mainstream leadership.

S2 - Episode 13 - Colin Harvey Jul 13, 2020

Show notes

A Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland is overdue and would protect the interests and concerns of all the population, insists Colin Harvey, professor of human rights at Queen’s University, Belfast. He was talking in the latest Forward Together podcast from the Holywell Trust.

The Good Friday Agreement provided the expectation that there would be a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland that would safeguard citizens’ rights. And a committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly is, more than 20 years on, considering this. But what would a Bill of Rights achieve – and which ‘rights’ would be included?

“If you look at what’s driving politics on both parts of the island, it’s real concerns about healthcare and housing and basic social and economic rights,” says Colin. “There’s a real chance to make sure that socio-economic rights on the island are no longer second class rights in the future.”

Colin argues that as well as health and housing, there is also a human right to environmental protection, addressing climate change and climate justice. He insists that what he calls “basic social and economic rights” need legal protection. “In the future, health care is a human right that needs to be solidly underpinned by legal guarantees.”

But does this mean that there should be a legal right for everyone having a job? “I think it’s important to recognize socio-economic rights as human rights, including employment rights. But… there are often balancing exercises that go along with those human rights instruments – not all human rights are absolute.

“I think the starting point has to be better recognition in law of the basic human rights that people need to have. And human rights advocates, equality advocates, social justice advocates on this island – but actually in Europe and globally – need to do a much better job at winning that argument. That’s not to say that human rights protections will deliver a utopia. They won’t. They’re really a starting point.

“But we’ve all got to try and agree that these things are basic human rights that have to be reflected in law. For example, I still think the north needs a Bill of Rights.”

Human rights advocates feel let down by the lack of progress following the Good Friday Agreement. “The Agreement held out a clear promise that it wouldn’t just be a shared society, that it would be a shared and better society,” insists Colin. “And that would include a number of things, including better human rights protection.”

In 2008, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission – whose members included Colin – submitted recommendations to the British government on a Bill of Rights. Yet “we still haven’t had that Bill of Rights delivered”. “What we see at the moment is there’s an ad hoc assembly committee that’s meeting to renew and revisit that conversation. So it’s long overdue that we have a Bill of Rights here. But it’s time for people to join that conversation. A conversation focused on not just having shared institutions and relative stability here, but actually the creation of a better society, a more equal society.”

But Colin warns: “The Agreement is very clear that the Bill of Rights is to be delivered at Westminster by the Westminster government.” And the debate has now been affected by the Brexit decision and the “likely loss of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU”. “So there’s a real anxiety and worry that the UK is planning to go backwards in relation to rights, that there’ll be undercutting of those rights, particularly in those basic areas of equality, employment, socio-economic justice, that people are really concerned about here.”

Colin is determined, though, that rights should not perceived as only being applicable for one section of society, but instead are actually protecting all members of society. “Those rights will protect everyone here.”

He continues: “First of all, it gives people a secure recognition. These are not issues of discretion and when they’re actually basic human rights that people have and guarantees. And I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of that. Secondly, it’s hoped it will be used in practice. And I would underline that it will only make a difference to people’s lives if the Bill of Rights that we adopt is an ambitious Bill of Rights. It isn’t just a tweak to the Human Rights Act.

“It’s something that reflects an ambitious vision for this society, that’s used in practice – that people are able to access justice in an affordable way, that they can use these rights, that public authorities mainstream these protections and the work that they do in a preventative way, that the Executive and the Assembly takes these measures seriously in their work, so that we’re not always going to court to enforce rights.”

He adds: “I wouldn’t be offering a Bill of Rights or human rights protections as the answer to all the problems of this society and the problems that we face. They’re just the starting point.”

Next week’s podcast will be the second in a two-part consideration of the call for a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, featuring an interview with former Progressive Unionist Party councillor Julie-Anne Corr-Johnston.

S2 - Episode 12 - Roisin Marshall Jul 06, 2020

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To follow

S2 - Episode 11 - Peter Osborne Jun 29, 2020

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Reconciliation above all

Reconciliation is the primary necessity facing Northern Ireland, believes Peter Osborne. Peter is a former chair of both the Community Relations Council and the Parades Commission. He was talking in the latest Forward Together podcast from the Holywell Trust.

“I come from a perspective of looking at what reconciliation is about,” says Peter. He argues that to achieve reconciliation it is essential to correct the structures that create separation. This has led him to strongly argue for the integration of the education and housing systems. “You need to make the structural changes that created segregation and the conflict,” he says.

“We need to tackle the causes of the problem, not deal with the symptoms. The cause of the problem here is segregation. That leads to sectarianism and all of the other stuff that we see every day. There is a real need to make the structural change around education and around play.”

Many health specialists argue that the NHS in Northern Ireland has the wrong structures, with too many buildings, many of them old and inefficient. The Bengoa review of health services concluded that too much money is spent on buildings and not enough on services, requiring a significant reorganisation and reshaping of the service to correct. Peter has argued that in a similar way Northern Ireland’s education system needs its own Bengoa-type review and restructure, with the possibility of reducing overheads and improving outcomes.

That view is influenced by the Department for Education saying that there are around 60,000 surplus places in Northern Ireland schools – though this is a reduction of 35,000 places since 2006. However, some educationalists argue that there is no indication that financial savings are achieved from school mergers – with perhaps extra costs being generated by the construction of new school campuses.

Peter is clear, though, that having surplus school places is wrong. He says: “It feels as if it's a waste of money. Well, it is a waste of money….There are a number of arguments that are relevant - there's the economic arguments, the political arguments as well.”

Peter stresses that apart from the direct costs of school building and teacher duplication, there is also the issue that “tens or perhaps hundreds of millions of pounds” are spent a year in bringing children and society together in community cohesion projects that would be unnecessary if children were educated together. Moreover, if school mergers led to the vacation of some existing school buildings that land could be sold to generate capital receipts that could be re-invested.

There is controversy around shared education campuses – opposition on the one side from some that the specific identity of faith schools is lost, while criticism on the other from those who believe it is a dilution of what can be achieved from fully integrated schools. Peter believes that shared campuses are clearly preferable to segregated schools.

“A lot of good stuff is happening within shared education,” he says. “There is some stuff that is not good. My criterion is that there is a continuum of moving to a place where children and young people are educated together. If shared education helps us move along that continuum then fine.”

He adds: “I'm not saying one system is all that we need. I am in favour of integrated schools for children learning and developing together: that could be achieved by different models. I think that's a conversation we need to have. But I think from the ground up, parents and young people, when they're asked, very clearly say we would prefer everybody in the same classroom together. There is a demand for that to happen.

“That doesn't mean that the children, young people, don't get any religious education. Actually, the experience from the integrated sector is that there is a greater focus on different types of religious education. Both the Protestant and the Catholic churches like it when they're involved in it, because they see what each other is doing and there is a greater relationship between the churches.”

But are the politicians willing to do more? “I do see a change happening in the political side,” says Peter. However, even if there is a willingness to have more integrated schools and shared campuses, that shift does not extend to the point of merging the Stranmillis and St. Mary’s teacher training colleges. “To have two teacher training colleges when clearly we should only have one, with a cost of millions of pounds extra, is ridiculous,” Peter argues. “I do get a sense that there's an acknowledgement of that politically. And, there was a debate in the Assembly recently where politicians did say they wanted to see an independent review of education. In the context of New Decade, New Approach, that means a single education system.”

But, believes Peter, there is an equally pressing need to develop shared housing provision. “We need to be a lot more ambitious about public housing and about shared housing.” The target now set is the building of 1500 more social housing units over the next 10 years, compared to the 487 in the previous plan – which is less than 1% of total new housing stock. “And we need to defend the policy on shared housing we have, making sure there aren’t paramilitary flags going up.”

While the political system has resisted radical change to achieve a more integrated society, Peter believes that greater progress might be achieved if citizens’ assemblies were used, in the way that has happened in the Republic. “I think citizens’ assemblies and civic engagement more generally are something that we really need to put more resources, more thought into,” he says. Peter hopes that citizens’ assemblies might be used to assist reform of the education system, the environment and other social issues. There is, he says, “a real opportunity to use them to come up with some answers”.

S2 - Episode 10 - Denis Bradley Jun 22, 2020

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‘Politicians will argue, they will fight over it and they will come up with reasons for not dealing with the past’

It was hoped that the Patten reforms would herald a new start for policing in Northern Ireland, but, argues Denis Bradley, the PSNI remains burdened with its legacy from the old RUC. Denis is a former vice-chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board and co-chair of the Consultative Group on the Past. He was talking in the latest Forward Together podcast from the Holywell Trust.
“In the setting-up of the PSNI, the new service inherited, carried with it, the deeds of the RUC. That was done at the time to placate unionism, which is understandable, I wouldn’t have any great problem with that,” says Denis.
“The difficulty with it was that it was taking the past with it, in the sense that it had to deal with the past while being part of the conflict itself. That left it in a bit of a bind. That goes through right to the present day. It may have been better to not carry the deeds of the RUC with it, but we are where we are, as they say.”
Denis adds: “The other thing is that in the establishment of it, the RUC overhung the new policing service. So does the conflict, in the sense that neither did militant republicanism totally go away, with dissidents breaking off from the Provisional IRA. Their whole base was within nationalist working class areas and they kept their presence there, through things like the Omagh bomb and right up to the present day.
“While one of the most prominent people in the whole Provisional organisation, Martin McGuinness - and within the new political establishment - described them as ‘militarily pathetic’, they also carried a threat – and the main threat was against the new policing service, on the grounds that they claimed that it wasn’t a fully re-established, reconstituted, independent service.”
This created serious challenges for the PSNI, made worse, argues Denis, by the lack of any tradition or culture of organised policing in working class nationalist areas. Though, he stresses, these areas were lawful, they were not used to a uniformed police service being present. This combination of factors meant that “policing in these communities was not what it should have been”. That should have led to a heavy concentration of recruiting police officers from those communities, along with a strong commitment to community policing in those areas – but that did not happen, says Denis.
Yet, despite this, community satisfaction with policing in Northern Ireland is by international standards unusually high – at around 80%, which is comparable to that across Europe. “Certainly higher than in some other countries, such as America,” explains Denis.
The PSNI remains a difficult force to lead. Chief constables who had a background in the RUC have found it impossible to shake off their association with the past, while all but one of those who came from England have been accused of naivety in their understanding of the complications of Northern Ireland society. Denis believes that only by tackling the inherent problems that he described can these leadership challenges be overcome. “I don’t think it matters so much who is the chief constable, because he or she is only one person.”
Denis praises the PSNI for improving community relationships across much of Northern Ireland. “I think that they have worked reasonably hard, and partially successfully, integrating themselves into communities. I get good feedback at times.” Denis adds: “I don’t believe the middle class in any country has difficulty with policing…. Where you find problems in most countries is in working class communities.”
Structures of accountability should mean that the PSNI is challenged to improve policing in Northern Ireland’s working class areas, including nationalist areas. But instead, says Denis, the response is “if we go in and do what you are asking us to do, we will get ourselves killed”.
Policing anywhere works though a combination of trust and what might be termed ‘dispassionate engagement’, argues Denis. “If the community it is policing has more trust and respect in it than it has mistrust and disrespect - if the balance is 50, 60, 70% -then policing can tackle most things - they will take the community with it, in good times and in bad.
“If, on the other hand, it is 30, or 40, or 15 or 20% - a minority feeling of trust – then in good times or bad that community will not liaise with, will not communicate with, policing in ways that are positive and successful in policing terms. If you scale that up into situations where there is organised crime, where people use guns, use drugs, or are very ruthless and violent, then you have the clash - between whether the community has trust in the police enough as a humane body, but also as a professional body. Then that police force will be more powerful and more successful than the organised crime.
“Dublin is a perfect example of that. Where communities have been more frightened of the drug gangs than the police, with young people more attracted to crime gangs than to the police.” It then becomes necessary for the police to engage with communities to generate the respect necessary to defeat crime gangs.
While the PSNI are dealing with the legacy of the RUC, and the complaints of its operations as a partisan force, there is also the legacy of Troubles killings. With the UK government apparently committed to avoiding new prosecutions of soldiers, this has again become extremely contentious.
Denis is wary about moves to set up another committee looking at the past, given the work that he and Archbishop Lord Robin Eames were engaged in when co-chairing the Consultative Group on the Past, which contained just three people. “One of my fears around the Stormont House Agreement, which came about ten years after the Consultative Group on the Past, in its management of how to deal with the past has about 30, or 40, or 60 people involved, in the sense that each aspect has more and more people involved, including a very strong representation from our political parties.
“I have never been of the opinion that the political parties are capable of dealing with the past. They will argue, they will fight over it and they will come up with reasons for not dealing with things. But they will never deal with it. There will always be a stand-off.” The Consultative Group addressed this by concluding that the two governments – the UK and Ireland – would have to resolve the problems.
“The second thing in dealing with the past is to be incredibly sensitive towards the victims. But in dealing with victims you must never allow the victims to be the leaders around this. There will always be divisions. They have different narratives and different needs and different passions. So you can never allow the victims to be the leaders in this. And to some extent victims have been politicised.”
Those comments were made by Denis several weeks before the arguments emerged that are now holding up the payment of pensions to Troubles survivors. But the deadlock certainly seems to vindicate his observations.
Disclaimer: This project has received support from the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council which aims to promote a pluralist society characterised by equity, respect for diversity, and recognition of interdependence. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Community Relations Council.

S2 - Episode 9 - Marissa McMahon Jun 15, 2020

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‘There is something seriously and fundamentally wrong’ – Northern Ireland’s housing crisis

Although the shortage of housing was a major issue in the recent Irish general election, it is also a major challenge in Northern Ireland. For some reason, there is much less focus on this north of the border. PPR – the Participation and Practice of Rights – is keen to correct this, as its housing activist Marissa McMahon explained in the latest Holywell Trust Forward Together podcast.

It is important to consider the statistics when placing the housing crisis in context. As at March last year, there were nearly 38,000 applicants in Northern Ireland on the social housing waiting list, of which more than 26,000 were recognised as being in ‘housing stress’, while 12,512 households were accepted as statutorily homeless. With less than a thousand new social homes built in 2018/19, at that rate it would take more than a decade to house just those who are accepted as homeless. It is fair to talk of a housing crisis in Northern Ireland, which is getting worse.

What is more, housing stress is connected to broader social problems – it can trigger depression and can be a factor in suicide. It is also related to relationship breakdowns and a range of other social problems. “There are over 15,000 children, under 18s, living in housing stress in these six counties,” says Marissa. “That is an awful lot of children growing up in accommodation that is not suitable. It's overcrowded, in hostels, in single lets. Children have become institutionalised and don’t know any different. I don't believe that in the 21st Century, in one of the six richest nations, that there should be that many people, including children, living in housing stress. There's something seriously and fundamentally wrong.”

PPR is specifically targeting the site of the former Mackie’s textile factory in West Belfast, which they want used to build new social homes. “It’s a massive piece of publicly owned land in the highest area of need in Belfast. Within a few miles radius there are five homeless hostels, that includes women and children and single males. Not one of those people in those hostels has been consulted on whether they would like to see homes built on the Mackie's site. Instead people in government decided that homes weren’t needed. Yet there are plans for private developers to build homes, build apartments, on a site adjacent to Mackie’s. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Marissa is also concerned about the Tribeca development proposal in the centre of Belfast. The city’s councillors “didn’t consider what the young people, the children, the women in those hostels, their views, or what they needed in that area,” she argues. “They are in social need.”

Instead of the construction of large numbers of new social housing, there has been a growth in the private housing sector. According to analysis by the House of Commons library, Northern Ireland has become the only part of the UK where the private housing rental sector is larger than the social housing sector. In some instances, that private housing is of very poor quality. “There needs to be a total reform of the private housing sector,” says Marissa. “There needs to be much more consistent and stringent policies in place.”

She expresses concern at the conditions in private accommodation in which refugees fleeing violence in Syria, for example, have been placed. “They are not for purpose, at all,” says Marissa. She instances “extreme dampness”, which can be very difficult to resolve, even though the lets have been arranged by the Housing Executive. “First of all they shouldn’t have been placed in homes of that standard and they shouldn’t have to go through these loops to get the basics… We have so many families who have tried to set up homes in private rental homes because that is all they can access and they are told we want you out within a month. Where do they go?”

While most homeless households are not sleeping rough, there is also a problem in Northern Ireland of street homelessness. Marissa believes this is not being properly addressed, even during the Covid-19 pandemic. “In comparison with England, the emergency changes to our legislation have been quite minor. The minister for housing in England has formed a task force, has made it a duty for local councils to house homeless people in B&Bs and hotels. Here it is much more ad hoc.”

Marissa adds: “I have an example of that. This is a frontline worker, working as an interpreter for the NHS, who was basically sleeping rough, who was put into what was being deemed as a single let. Then I was told that this may cost up to £750 per month. She can't afford that. So while they've lifted the people off the street and put them into accommodation - which is absolutely fantastic to see – there is this worry about what happens afterwards. Is it going to be rolled back, back onto the street? Where do these people go?”

S2 - Episode 8 - Alan McBride Jun 08, 2020

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‘My coping mechanism is talking, seeking peace and reconciliation’

Alan McBride’s personal journey is well known, but remarkable nonetheless. It was in 1993 that his wife Sharon and her father Desmond Frizzell were killed in an IRA bomb attack on the family fish shop in Belfast’s Shankill Road. But with immense dignity, Alan has since dedicated his life to reconciliation and progress, as well as campaigning on behalf of victims. He is the latest interviewee in the Holywell Trust Forward Together podcasts.

Alan admits that initially after Sharon died he had to deal with a range of emotions attached to bereavement – guilt, anger, profound sadness and emptiness. But then “I started getting involved, speaking out and getting involved in rallies with an organization called Families Against Intimidation and Terror, who highlighted human rights abuses. They fulfilled a need I had to speak out and to challenge paramilitaries and those that supported them”.

He adds: “I was trying to make sense of everything that was going on.” A lot of his anger was directed against Gerry Adams, who helped carry the body of the dead Shankill Road bomber, Thomas Begley. But his personal story included his father having been a member of the UDA.

“I had this breakthrough moment when I started to think about my own upbringing, and started to think about how many Catholics I knew, the things I had got involved in as a kid – the riots, fires, 12th July celebrations, etc. And I believed the society we had here was abnormal – it was very different from any other part of the United Kingdom. The society itself produced some of the types of things that led to what the people who killed my wife did.

“It wasn’t that I had forgiven them, or gone soft on them, but I sort of understood that if they had grown up in any other part of the United Kingdom they probably wouldn’t have done the things they did. So when I’m thinking about peace and reconciliation and I’m thinking of pointing the finger – the net has to be cast much wider than just those who planted bombs and shot and killed people. The churches are involved. As a young boy I went to church and heard some very sectarian sermons from the pulpit…. I also remember politicians who didn’t give us any sort of leadership. If anything they were compounding our sense of sectarianism.

“To be honest that hasn’t really changed that much in recent times. One of the things I hope that comes out of this coronavirus is that we have a kinder more humane society. The bullshit politics we have had in this country for far too long.”

He adds: “It was when I started to think like that I began to not feel the need to campaign against people like Gerry Adams and paramilitaries and instead involve myself in peace building and tried to engage in dialogue with people I had previously been opposed to and tried to build an understanding with them of where I am coming from.

“These days I see my role as someone who is involved in peace building, advocates a peaceful life, a peaceful society. My criticism is not only for those who were involved in violence to achieve a political end, but also for those who gave them cover. I include in that, the DUP, the Ulster Unionists, not just Sinn Fein, anybody who had any tacit support for paramilitaries – advocating for them, or turning a blind eye as was quite often the case.”

In today’s society, one of the issues we still struggle with is whether all those who died should be treated equally, whether there should be ‘a hierarchy of victims’. “What we have to consider is the families who are left behind,” says Alan. “I just see them as families whose relatives lost their lives in this conflict. But I will say this – I will always challenge the person who tries to put my wife on the same page, in terms of her guilt or her innocence, with [the bombers] Sean Kelly or Thomas Begley. They murdered my wife. They went out that day to commit murder. My wife wasn’t the intended victim – she was just expendable, collateral damage.

“So I won’t put them on the same page. But their families? Absolutely. I will put them on the same page. I suffer just as much as the Kelly family suffers, or the Begley family suffers.” But he recognises there are people who regard them as soldiers in a war. “It’s obviously not an opinion I share… It is not helpful to me at all to say we are all victims in the same way.”

But the trauma today is not restricted to the families who mourn dead relatives. There is also the trauma of people left with profound injuries and disabilities because of events – and the trauma that passes down generations and can be manifested through addictions. It can be “the wider family circle”, stresses Alan.

He is open that his coping mechanism is talking, campaigning, challenging others and seeking peace and reconciliation. “Yet there are others who cope in different ways.” Alan admits that his journey to seek reconciliation was traumatic for his relatives, especially for his mother-in-law. “We have coped in very different ways. And the way I coped had an impact on her.”

Alan adds: “It’s ok not to talk about it, if that’s you and that’s your thing. But if you are going to bed at night and that is the thing stopping you going to sleep, causing you recurring nightmares, then you probably do need at some stage to get that out, to talk about it, get it out into the open.”

S2 - Episode 7 - Daniel Holder Jun 01, 2020

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What is justice? The answer might be obvious, but in past Forward Together podcast interviews it has been noticeable that the responses to that question have been inconsistent. While parts of political unionism seem focused on the judicial process for acts going back to the Troubles, the response by some in republicanism has been that the core of justice is about creating a fair society today.

Daniel Holder, deputy director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice, tells the latest Holywell Trust Forward Together podcast that it is important to use the objective and settled international definitions of justice and human rights, applying these on a consistent and fair basis.

Objectivity is essential, argues Daniel. “That's the whole point of human rights law. It isn't designed for here, obviously, it is designed for everywhere. To have an objective framework, that everyone is equal before the law. National or regional governments have to reach certain standards so that they are actually objective and fair. This isn’t a question of different identities having different interpretations. It is a question of abuse of power in the past, with laws that weren’t fair and weren’t applied equally.”

He adds: “Human rights are things that are agreed in international treaties at the level of the United Nations and the Council of Europe. They are matters of international law. We're talking about things like civil and political rights, freedom against torture, right to a fair trial. You're talking about socio-economic rights, like rights to health and housing and work. That is the framework within which we operate, because we think it broadly provides solutions and a decision-making framework.”

Daniel continues: “You can't make human rights up…. When the smoking ban came in way back, people were sort of going, well, what about my right to smoke? You don't actually have a right to smoke! You've just made that up.”

The question then is how to apply those principles in the context of the legacy of the Troubles. “There are dozens of international human rights standards that set out to develop a body of law,” Daniel points out. These provide a framework for dealing with legacy alongside truth, “but also very importantly, guarantees of non-recurrence.” He suggests we “would be better-off calling ourselves a society emerging from conflict”, rather than a “post-conflict society”.

Daniel asserts that the Troubles were “a conflict…. fuelled by patterns of human rights violations. We are in a position to develop structures to stop them recurring and stop ourselves being trapped in a cycle of conflict.”

The most recent work of significance by the CAJ was a report, co-authored by Daniel, which examines the actions of the British government, which seems to be leading to the avoidance of prosecutions of soldiers. Daniel argues that this is a breach of the Stormont House Agreement. He believes that the UK government has committed a u-turn, not just on that, but also on what was in the New Decade, New Approach agreement, which set out the principle of an independent investigations unit to examine offences committed during the Troubles.

Daniel suggests that the terminology used by the British government is itself a breach of the principles of the separation of powers, between the executive and judiciary. “I mean, [it is] a preposterous suggestion… [of] vexatious prosecutions…. [It] is the executive branch of government, really, undermining its own criminal justice system by suggesting that somehow its own Director of Public Prosecutions is engaged in a sort of false or mischievous prosecutions of members of the military”.

The CAJ was established during the Troubles as a human rights body, but its role was pushed in a different direction as a result of Brexit and how it affects the rights of people in Northern Ireland. “Brexit was something that happened and caused us to start to re-orientate work considerably on the back of the referendum,” says Daniel. It was particularly concerned about protecting the rights of migrant workers living in Northern Ireland. But it also acted with regard to differences between the rights of people in Northern Ireland who had either British or Irish citizenship.

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