Holywell Trust Conversations

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Episode 16 - John Kyle Jun 10, 2019

Show notes

‘We have lost ground in the past 20 years’, claims PUP’s John Kyle

Society in Northern Ireland has gone backwards since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, argues the former leader of the Progressive Unionist Party John Kyle, who is also a GP in Belfast. “In my view we have lost ground in the past 20 years,” he says in the latest Forward Together podcast.

John believes that we need to review the progress that was achieved and consider why it has lost momentum. He suggests three factors enabled the conflict to end. “The first important element was that violence was a flawed strategy and it didn't achieve its ends,” he reflects. “People got to a certain age where they thought - look, we have suffered, we have paid a price. Do we want our children to have to go through this? Sure as hell we don't.

“I think the second factor was that the churches got their act together. [They ended] the preaching against one another and calling one another anathema. I think that suddenly changed and the churches realized we have a responsibility to love our brother. While we may disagree strongly and vigorously with them, we have got to show respect and love to our brother.... There was a remarkable coming together between the Catholic and Protestant traditions, not involving everyone, but involving a vast majority of influential and leading people and many congregations.... So the theological justification was suddenly removed from the conflict.

The third aspect, particularly within the middle classes in Northern Ireland, was that you were able to travel more... So they were living in this more mobile society, a more cosmopolitan, more international society. They hadn't realized there was a bigger perspective to the world.... Within the middle classes that ameliorated a lot of the animosity between the two traditions. And we made progress with the Good Friday Agreement. People had a sense of hope. They said, hey we can do this. And there was a real sense of this has been a monumental step forward, this opens up new opportunities. Let's build on this and let's capitalize on this.

“But some things happened that undermined trust. There still was a huge reservoir of hurt. People had been damaged and suffered and that reservoir of suffering was not really being properly addressed.”

Since then, argues John, politicians in the main parties have exploited those community differences and continued hurt for party political benefits – to increase their votes. “I think our politicians need to man up to that and recognize that they have to bear a significant responsibility for what we have lost in the past 10 to 15 years.” John adds that civic society is giving the powerful politicians a message – which they ignore. “Politicians do seem to be cocooned when it comes to responding to what broader civil society is saying, because it seems to me that there is a huge disparity between what people say they would like to see happen and what politicians are actually doing.”

John, a loyalist politician, argues that for Northern Ireland’s system to change for the better “people need to have the courage to vote outside of their traditional patterns of voting, particularly in elections where the constitutional issue is not at stake or is not fundamental to what they're doing. I think we need to realize that we need a broader political representation of people who feel exasperated with the politicians who currently hold power, yet they tend to go back and still vote for them at the next election.”

Working class loyalist and unionist areas are suffering from both neglect and the impact of urban planning, John believes. “Urban planning broke up a lot of the very densely knit communities,” he says, causing a breach of the cohesion and sense of community that used to predominate. “I mean we had terrible housing. When I was a young GP working in east Belfast, some of the housing was appalling. So we needed to do something about that. But in removing that and then building new housing stock, that sense of community was fundamentally undermined.”

John believes that to make progress it is essential that we see the personal, not just collective groups. In particular, we need to recognise the individual pain of victims of The Troubles. “Colin Davidson has done some remarkable work in terms of victims and survivors and one of the things that Colin says is that most of the people that he's worked with, what they're looking for is an acknowledgement of their suffering.... I think we have failed to acknowledge the suffering and loss.... What Colin Davidson has done is to show the personal face of the pain of The troubles and, yes, the physically injured bodies.”

That same point about dealing with people as people, not just as representatives, can help us make progress in the political logjam, John suggests. “My understanding is that during the negotiations behind the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement, one of the first things George Mitchell did was to take the politicians out of the current situation here, take them away and enable them to relate to each other as human beings. I think we have a huge need still to do that - to relate to one another as human beings, not as political opponents, or as the other side, or as the enemy, or as the cause of my suffering. We need to find new contexts to enable people to talk together.”

Holywell Trust receives support for the Forward Together Podcast through the Media Grant Scheme and Core Funding Programme of Community Relations Council and Good Relations Core Funding Programme of Derry City and Strabane District Council.

Episode 15 - Maureen Hetherington Jun 07, 2019

Show notes

‘If we tell people the cost of segregation, they will support greater integration’

If people are told the financial cost of segregation and service duplication, there will be much greater support for social integration, says community worker Maureen Hetherington. Maureen is director of The Junction community and peace-building centre in Derry-Londonderry and was interviewed in the latest ‘Forward Together’ podcast.

“I have no doubt that integrated education is absolutely fundamental to getting people to know each other, to engage with each other,” stresses Maureen. “The difficulty there is that we don't have the integrated society. So we absolutely need to start the social housing, that has to be cross-community and it has to be mixed. We could highlight the cost of segregation.

“When we get down to the bread and butter issues, the majority of people out there want the best for the children, their family, they want to keep surviving, they want a quality of life. This cost of segregation, if people realise, if we look at that and redistribute the money to where it is really needed, then I think that people would be up for a more integrated society. The majority of people do want change. They do want a better future. But it's taking that leap of faith, but also taking the steps towards that... exposing the segregation for what it is - the systems and structures that keep people separated - and finding ways of bringing them together.” Maureen believes that the other key element of integrating society is for people to live in genuinely shared communities.

Maureen is a strong believer in civil society alongside politics that works – but believes, for the time being, that the politics are broken. “I think that in any society we need a top down and a bottom up approach,” she says. “Unfortunately not having anything at the top at the moment, it relies very heavily on the bottom up approach. I think that the citizens’ assembly is a very good idea and it's very good to have people actually having a civil, mature conversation that draws out the common sense and the conclusions – the greater good - then you can actually reach a consensus and then you realize everything is about compromise.

“But unfortunately whenever we have politicians who have absolutely no interest in dealing with the common or greater good, and everything is based on the self-interest of the party, it becomes stymied and it becomes limited. I worry all the time that we raise expectations in the community and then when nothing comes of it, people get very disillusioned, disheartened and they disengage. And part of that is that they continually try to make progress. They go to the workshops, they'll do what they can, but then ultimately it’s stymied or stopped or you know it comes to an abrupt end and progress can’t be seen. People have to be in it for the long-term.”

In this latest podcast interview, Maureen warns on the mental health impact of social media on young people, but also the risks of isolation for the elderly who are not computer literate. In a wide-ranging conversation, Maureen argues that society cannot have real peace until patriarchal structures are dismantled and calls for “gender justice”. “That's a huge challenge,” she stresses.

Maureen urges Northern Ireland society to move on from the past and avoid using history in ways that prevent us from making progress.

Episode 14 - Simon Hamilton Jun 03, 2019

Show notes

‘Citizen’s Assembly could help progress with health reform’

The adoption of a citizens’ assembly could assist with making progress with reform of the health service in Northern Ireland, says Simon Hamilton – a DUP MLA and former health and finance minister. He was interviewed in the latest ‘Forward Together’ podcast.

Speaking about the use of citizens’ assemblies in the Republic of Ireland, Simon explains: “They shouldn't be dismissed instantly just because you didn't like what some other jurisdiction was doing with them.” He adds: “I know from my time in the health department that there are a range of issues where you think you know the answer. But executing them in a way in which the public understand, get it and get on board with it is a different matter entirely.” For example with health reform, where service provision might be moved or merged to improve quality and outcomes, yet the public will perceive that they have lost a local service.

With a citizens’ assembly, a randomly selected group of people would listen to experts to brief them so that they have an in-depth understanding of a problem. In those circumstances, the public might have trust in the experts to be guided towards the best solution. Simon explains: “There is a space clearly for civic society to play a role... helping politicians to shape the common good.” However, Simon does not believe the former Civic Forum was the right approach to achieve this. “It wasn't representative. And nobody really I think understood what its purpose was.... It wasn't a check on the Assembly, it couldn't be a check on the Assembly. I think there are far, far better ways in which that voice can be heard.”

Simon adds that he is concerned at how at present civil society presents its views. He believes that too often civic voices tend to say “a plague on all your houses”, rather than being more specific in allocating blame and advocating solutions.

Northern Ireland needs to reflect on the scale of the challenge it is dealing with in moving on from conflict and division, Simon suggests. “We probably haven't taken collectively the time to sit back and say we believe this is a 50 year job probably here. Nobody wants to hear that it's a 50 year job, but maybe it’s at that end of the scale. So this is a long-term job.”

What is more, it is an inter-generational challenge. “I think we were all a bit naive” in not recognising the attitudes and beliefs that led to the conflict would not be passed down the generations, he says. It had been assumed “that people who lived through it and experienced that and perhaps were affected were victims or survivors themselves, [as they] got older and passed away that the problem would pass away almost with them. And that hasn't. And it is being passed on.” What has been left behind with the next generation instead has, for some, been a “romanticism” about the Troubles, he argues.

The challenge of restoring devolution is made more difficult, too, by the lack of contact between members of different political parties. When Stormont is functioning, MLAs of various parties bump into each other and talk. Without Stormont, that does not happen. “There's not even a place where politicians from across the country come and sit and have any sort of a debate,” says Simon. “And I'm pretty sure that if we were back in business there would be occasional debates and discussions around the constitutional issue. I always think it was a sign of the tone of the progress that we were making that there were debates around the constitutional question.

“Brexit has obviously brought the issue onto the agenda in terms of the constitutional question, but not in a positive way. Clearly atmosphere and context is important, but you're not going to get a polite, civilized conversation whenever politics itself is not polite and civilized at this moment in time. So I think for a whole host of reasons we need devolution back.”

Episode 13 - Jim Dornan May 31, 2019

Show notes

There needs to be an all-island, integrated, health service, and its creation should not be dependent upon the agreement or timing of a united Ireland, argues Professor Jim Dornan – one of the architects of existing cross-border co-operation in health services. Jim was interviewed in the latest Forward Together podcast.

“In many ways Ireland is a Goldilocks sized country for health provision,” he explains. “We can cherry pick the best of health provision throughout the world and let's introduce it to Ireland. The health service is a wonderful concept.” But to protect NHS-type health service provision, it is important for individuals and society collectively to accept more responsibility for their own good health, argues Jim.

“The two health services are increasingly working together and they're full of men and women with vision. Unfortunately they also have some dry wood amongst them. But we're moving forward and young, well educated managers are coming through who really do understand how medicine has to evolve with the population. So I'm positive about health going forward, but I would like to see everybody having equal access to the same health standards.”

Jim is particularly concerned that regions away from Belfast and Dublin, particularly in the west, have less access to health services. He stresses: “I think health is a perfect example of something that we can get on with now, rather than rather than wait for a potential possible change in the dispensation.”

Like many other people interviewed in the Forward Together podcasts, Jim is persuaded that the Eames-Bradley report offers the best way to deal with the past. “I would encourage the powers that be to brush down Eames-Bradley,” he says. “I think Eames-Bradley was a wonderful document and sadly for whatever reasons some parts of the media, who were quite powerful, focused on the compensation part and that became the whole news item.... I think if it was properly done, Eames-Bradley has got a lot of life left in it and should be dusted down.”

Jim refers to his preference for “a new Union of Ireland”, but is strongly opposed to an immediate border poll. “For a start, everybody must learn how to stop grabbing a microphone,” he says. “I mean starting to call for it now honestly is just not very savvy. It's not very politically savvy and it's only annoying people. I'd say it's a fact that there's going to be a border referendum. I want to be voting on facts. So we need to have a conversation to see what are the best ways forward. And there is so much happening at the moment.”

He adds: “I'm not supportive of calling for a border referendum poll at this stage although I totally accept and in fact relish one in the future, but one thing it has shown is that nobody is prepared.”

Discussion on the future must, suggests Jim, be based on “proper facts rather than something written on the side of a bus.” He continues: “Then when we're ready, then let's have a quiet sensible adult vote on the subject. I have to say that to me I don't mind sticking my neck out saying that I would love to see the border disappear, because it just is divisive. But whether the border or any new dispensation would just be around our shoreline or might include other areas, I think that is really up for grabs. I wouldn't have said it five years ago, but I'm saying it now.”

Episode 12 - Fergus O'Dowd May 27, 2019

Show notes

Justice for victims is achieved by “giving them a society that works”, says Fergus O'Dowd TD of Fine Gael. He is a member of the Oireachtas Good Friday Implementation Committee and was appointed earlier this year by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to lead a new Fine Gael group to develop links with Northern Ireland. He is interviewed in the latest Forward Together podcast.

Discussing how to deal with events of the past, Fergus stresses that victims and their relatives must be treated fairly, and criticises recent remarks by Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley in the House of Commons about Bloody Sunday. She initially said that killings by security forces were "not crimes", before rowing back on the remarks.

“Some of the commentary wasn't helpful,” Fergus says, adding, “the Secretary of State wasn't helpful.” The risk, he says, is that “you have a society where you get law, but you don't get justice.” The best approach, he suggests, is “you give them justice by giving them a society that works, an administration that respects all sides”.

Fergus urges Sinn Fein to take their seats in the House of Commons in order to help protect the whole of Ireland from the impact of Brexit. “The nationalist voice has not been heard in the UK Parliament. I think it is hugely important that it would be and that would help. But obviously it probably won't happen.... This decision is about all of Ireland.... This is a historic, huge, decision, which will have ramifications probably for hundreds of years for all we know.”

Fergus stresses that he is an Irish nationalist, who believes in achieving a united Ireland by consent. But he believes this should not create a bar to engaging with, and working with, unionists in the north. He makes a plea to the DUP – to engage with politicians in the Republic. “I've met some unionists, not too many of the DUP. I would like to engage more. I need to understand their position better. I've met moderate unionists and I understand their position absolutely and respect it. I've met moderate nationalists. I need to meet with the majority party in the north, which is the DUP.”

He is clear that citizens’ assemblies were of enormous importance in enabling southern politics to deal with the challenging decisions around same sex marriage and abortion. Fergus believes that citizens’ assemblies could do the same with constitutional issues in the north, including, at some point, a possible united Ireland.

Fergus stresses that what has happened in recent years has meant “we've become a completely different society”. He is a TD in County Louth, based in Drogheda, a town which is noticeably more multi-cultural than anywhere in Northern Ireland. He says that at one recent meeting, those present had a mix of 32 different first languages. Yet Drogheda and the Republic seem to be more successful than Northern Ireland at integrating communities.

One means of supporting integration has been by giving parents the choice of the status of new schools. “It's a huge change and it's very welcome because the views of the parents are the ones that count... If you continue to have separate schools for separate religions, I don't think that's a good thing, personally. I think that integration means that you go to the same school, the school that is nearest.”

Episode 11 - Alexandra De La Torre May 24, 2019

Show notes

‘Women lose out in Northern Ireland’

More must be done in Northern Ireland to make society more open for women and for minorities, argues Alexandra De La Torre, the co-ordinator for NICVA of the Next Chapter, which has the objective of strengthening women's engagement in civic society and participation in society. Alexandra is interviewed in the latest Forward Together podcast.

“I think it is fundamental for civil society to create spaces where there is room for everyone,” she says. “Spaces that are inclusive for women, inclusive for minorities, inclusive for people with disabilities or sexual orientation. But it is also fundamental to put away the resources to access these opportunities. Civil society in Northern Ireland played a fundamental role in peace-building. I see at the moment the challenges that Brexit is bringing to Northern Ireland, which are going to be huge and civil society will have its own fundamental role to play in this.”

Alexandra adds: “The objectives of the Next Chapter include getting more women onto boards, to get them into more senior positions across society, and in the business sector as well, and in politics.”

While women were central to the peace-building role, the fear is that women’s role may now be less central. Alexandra explains: “What the Next Chapter is doing as a project is to try to empower women and bring these voices back to public life and [create] genuine spaces for women to participate in public life.”

Although many people would say that women hold very strong positions as leaders of political parties in Northern Ireland, Alexandra argues that far too many women are marginalised and there are too few women MLAs. “Thirty years on from the Good Friday Agreement we still don't see how women are getting the benefit of that agreement, even though [their involvement] in civil society has been great. At this stage, women need more recognition.... Yes we have two women on the top of politics, but the question is, are these two women representative - are they representing all women? Or are they representing their male-orientated politics of their political parties? These are two very different things.”

Alexandra points out that many of the things most important for women are not delivered in Northern Ireland today. “We don't have a child care strategy policy.... So it's not enough. [We need] structural changes to our society that can assist women to have a stronger role in civic society, but can also actually strengthen civil society itself.

If you look at the statistics, basically wherever you go to the senior leadership positions in civil society organisations, the majority are held by women which is great. We also need women in all spaces of decision-making.”

Episode 10 - Clare Bailey May 20, 2019

Show notes

‘We have a political process instead of a peace process’

Northern Ireland has “had a political process at the cost of a peace process”, believes Clare Bailey MLA, the leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland. She is highly critical of the limited progress since the Good Friday Agreement 21 years ago and the lack of real social integration. She was speaking in the latest Forward Together podcast.

Clare questions who has benefited since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

“Certainly within the working class and the most deprived areas in Northern Ireland and those communities - they certainly haven't seen a pay-off,” she argues. Clare references the lack of government, squeezed budgets, welfare reform, “soaring levels of poverty” and “more people dying by suicide since the signing of the Good Friday agreement than were ever killed in the troubles. We have intergenerational trauma.”

She lists her frustrations with lack of progress. “We have more peace walls in Northern Ireland now than we did during the conflict. Our education system hasn't moved on. Back in 1981, I was one of the first 28 pupils to attend Lagan [integrated] College when it first opened. There were protests at the door of the school. Our buses were smashed and we were identified by our uniforms.... But yet here we are almost 38 years later with only 65 of our schools both primary and post primary that are under the integrated banner.... Over the past 20 years I've seen little attempt at integration.”

Clare adds that it is wrong to believe that we should wait for politics and the economy to improve before civic society is strengthened. “We need to hear a civic voice,” she urges, adding that “citizens’ assemblies [are] an excellent model to start engaging with.”

She makes clear her frustration with elements of mainstream British and Northern Irish politics. “We have hardline Brexiteers who are pushing for a no deal Brexit and openly admitting that they'd never even read the Good Friday Agreement. And nationalist parties whose raison d'être has always been about a united Ireland, they’ve reached this point and [they are] still not willing to put their ideas on the table of what that is.”

This context, she suggests, is dangerous. “We are still a deeply traumatised society. It doesn't take much to just scratch those open wounds. People are still living with fear and it's getting worse because we're not dealing with it.”

As far as Clare is concerned, the Assembly – when functioning – is itself an expression of sectarian division. “I have to designate myself as either a nationalist or a unionist. And if I don't agree with either, or don't identify as either, I'm automatically designated as ‘an other’. I designated myself as a feminist when I was first elected and the computer does not compute. So I am automatically an ‘other’. So therefore my ‘other’ vote in some Assembly debates is lesser than that of a nationalist or a unionist. And it's in those types of situations I mean by saying sectarianism has been written into the heart of the institutions.”

As far as the future is concerned, the challenge of climate change is the most important issue. “If we want a united Ireland, we need to talk about transformation and we need to be in no doubt whatsoever that a new Ireland is coming. And she's on her way and she's called climate chaos. We've been given 12 years to the point of no return from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – when, if we do not radically change our lifestyles, our behaviours, then the damage that will be done will be irreparable. So we will be forced into renegotiating who we are on this island. How do we get along. What our relationships are. But more importantly, how we do business together. So I am in no doubt that a new Ireland is coming, but I don't believe that it's the one many people are thinking of.”

Episode 9 - Peter Sheridan May 17, 2019

Show notes

In praise of Citizens’ Assemblies – Peter Sheridan believes they can provide solutions to some of Northern Ireland’s most intractable problems

Citizens’ assemblies should be widely used to address the problems faced by communities across Northern Ireland, argues Peter Sheridan, the chief executive of Co-operation Ireland. He was interviewed in the latest Forward Together podcast.

“It works in Canada, it works in Iceland: there are examples all around the world.” Speaking before the murder of Lyra McKee, Peter continues: “You pick an area and pick a problem, you randomly select a group of people from the electoral register and depending on the size of the problem it could be 30, 40, 50, 60 people. So it could be an area the size of Creggan on the west bank of the Foyle. You identify a particular problem. So let's take as an example that may be in an area, how do we stop young people joining paramilitaries? And you bring in expert opinion – who might say well, for example, in Colombia here's how they went about stopping young people joining groups.”

Having heard from experts, the random assembly of residents would then deliberate on how to address the problem. The sessions would be facilitated, supported and reported. “That could be over a period of two weekends, two days each weekend, where that group of 50 would really engage in the conversation and they'd be remunerated for being present.”

Peter adds: “I don't think there are any problems that are off limits that the public could not have a view on.... Actually some of the best thinking and ideas come from people who live in the community.” In many cases, he explains, the process will involve statutory agencies saying what they are doing – and the results may be strongly critical of those same agencies. “But they shouldn't see it as a threat. This is meant to help and support them to improve the way of life for people in particular communities.”

One of Peter’s frequent comments is that the discussion about rights should be reversed. He explains: “One of the frustrations that I have is that our political system here is such that even when they're in a shared executive they all champion their own side's rights.... I would want to know from the DUP - what is it you're going to do that protects the Catholic, nationalist, republican traditions, cultures and identity? And then Sinn Fein, what is it you're able to do that protects the Protestant, unionist, loyalist traditions, their culture and their identity? [We need to] get people wanting to protect their neighbours’ rights.

“I've always had the view that one of the weaknesses of the Good Friday Agreement was that we managed to get all of the political parties in Northern Ireland to concede to the British government of Tony Blair. We managed to get them all to concede to the Irish government of Bertie Ahern. And we managed to get them all to concede to the American government of Bill Clinton. But what they didn't do was concede to each other.”

He adds: “I want to know what you're going to do to protect the other community. And literally that's where you change the conversation to.”

But Peter, a former senior RUC officer, also argues that the history of The Troubles should not be ignored, yet needs to be handled with enormous care to avoid re-traumatising victims and survivors. He says that he had conversations with Martin McGuinness and others in which he said that each had to accept they had different stories and understanding of the past. Each has to accept the other has their own version of what happened and why. “I think once you can get people to think in that way, then you have the possibility of being able to look to the future. Because the way we are doing it now is that we're going back over 40 years trying to decide who's right and who's wrong in every instance. And we will still not agree.”

Peter adds that any referendum on a united Ireland has to learn from the mistakes of the Brexit referendum. “The first thing I think we have to do is to not do what we're doing at the minute, which is saying we have to have a border poll. No, to me it's a bit like what people did in Brexit. Let's have a border poll to say yes or no. And then we'll decide. We have not had the conversation to say what might this means for the Irish flag, for the Irish national anthem, all of the other arrangements in terms of policing, environment, health, education. You can’t make a quick decision on something as complex as that.”

Episode 8 - Claire Sugden May 13, 2019

Show notes

‘Political leadership is key to making progress’

Developing mutual respect, strengthening relationships and building proper political leadership are the basis for making progress in Northern Ireland, believes independent unionist MLA – and former justice minister - Claire Sugden. She is interviewed in the latest Forward Together podcast.

Talking before the announcement of renewed political talks, Claire expressed her frustration at the lack of a functioning Assembly and Executive. “We've had a situation here at Stormont where we haven't had a sitting assembly for two years. And I think the anger amongst the general public is palpable. You know I feel it and see it every day. I'm a great believer that leadership is about bringing people with you. And I don't think politics is doing that right now.

“I actually think good politics and good governance is what's missing from our puzzle. You know that the past 20 years really were about establishing the institutions, establishing the peace and ensuring that we get to a place where we can pull together. I think now is the time where we actually work together and we start delivering for the people of Northern Ireland. And I think when we do that we might start to see that people realize we're all the same despite our backgrounds.... You know there's not one person in Northern Ireland that wouldn't tell me that they just want to be helped and they want the country to move forward. How we get there is leadership and good governance.”

And Claire is one of those politicians who is genuinely keen to open up the political system to bring in more non-political voices to improve engagement and strengthen democracy. “I think the work that's being done on a civic forum or a civic assembly, I think is really positive,” she says. “I think people do need to be engaged because too often I suppose politicians take it for granted that they know what the public [wants]... So yes there needs to be a mechanism to suggest what public opinion really is - a safe space if you like for politicians to engage in a debate....

“I think it's sad that post-Good Friday Agreement that the Civic Forum didn't come to anything. I think it was perhaps more [about] it's makeup rather than the intention and the idea around it. It wasn't genuinely civic. It was perhaps people who already had a voice within the political system and that's what any future sort of civic forum or civic platform needs to be about - it needs to be about people on the ground, it needs to be about the people who actually are suffering from the fact that we don't have an assembly.... The people we need to get here are the people who are not engaged...

And to me that's leadership. You're bringing people along with you by having them in the room having the conversation.

“My experience with the political parties - and I certainly don't speak for any of them - is that they do not represent the best interests of all the people of Northern Ireland. Every MLA will tell you that it's not just unionists who come into their office or nationalists, it's people from all backgrounds. Day-to-day, it's actually our job to represent and advocate for their best interests, on their behalf.”

Claire argues that dividing lines between the political parties get in the way of making Northern Ireland a better place. “Where we seem to get stuck is on party policy,” she says. “I very much see my job is about improving public services for the people of Northern Ireland. And I think sometimes the higher level stuff gets in the way.” She adds that “the past is one of the things that's getting in the way of us dealing with the present and the future”.

She continues: “How can we even have a conversation towards uniting an island when we can't unite ourselves within a part of the island?” That process of healing our society includes being open and honest about the past – and trying to understand why people from different backgrounds did the things they did. “I think the greatest skill that any politician can have is empathy,” she says. “You don't have to agree. And I think sometimes we misunderstand empathy with agreement. It is important to know where people come from.”

It also involves having a better understanding of what did happen. Claire stresses: “One thing that really struck me in my work as minister of justice when I was meeting a lot of victims and their families was the trauma from what had happened. Trauma is such a big part of conflict. And I think it's appalling that as a post-conflict society we have never even considered how we dealt with our trauma and still aren't 20 years later. But that trauma seems to get passed from generation to generation.

“If we are genuinely going to reconcile, we have to break that trauma at some point. I met a grandmother who sadly then passed away. But it's their grandson who's sitting in the room, talking to me about the injustices of their relative being taken during the Troubles and the fact that they haven't got answers and that the government hasn't upheld their responsibility around that. So I don't think it's enough to say time will be a healer, because I think trauma, particularly in a post-conflict situation, is going to get passed from generation to generation to generation. If we don't address it then we will be still facing the same issues in 50 years time.”

Claire adds: “I think there are current politicians who are suffering from their own traumas of the past. I think trauma is an inevitable part of life, whether it's in Northern Ireland because of post-conflict, or whether it's because someone close to you passed away when you were 16. But it's how we deal with that - and that's how we move forward. And I don't think we've been given the tools, or even the knowledge, to be able to do that.”

Episode 7 - Alan McBride May 10, 2019

Show notes

“A leadership vacuum” that must be filled

A leadership vacuum is causing harm across Northern Ireland, including in loyalist areas, and contributes to the lure of paramilitaries, warns victims’ campaigner

Alan McBride in the latest Forward Together podcast. “I think we probably need to put a lot of investment into areas like East Belfast and the Shankill and other areas to try and improve the leadership potential,” he argues.

Alan adds: “As a grassroots working class Protestant loyalist myself, I have a real feel for that community. I don't always think that they're best served by the sort of spokespeople that they put forward at this moment. So I would like to see other voices - voices that perhaps we haven't heard yet.”

He is particularly critical of DUP representation of loyalist areas. “I don't think the DUP represent loyalist communities. I think they use loyalist communities for votes, but I don't think they really deliver for loyalist communities. You'll see that certainly where I live and in other areas. I think there's absolutely room for improvement there.

“If you look at some of the reports that have come out in the last few years around educational achievement amongst working class loyalists boys - I think there's a lot of issues out there that are coming out of that. And I think there needs to be a big cash injection initially... taking some of those young people and developing leadership skills and developing them.”

Alan is a strong critic of the education system, which he believes fails children from working class backgrounds. “I've heard people champion our education system and say that it's the best in Europe, the best in the world and all. For some people that's true. But not for a lot of people... We have to absolutely encourage young people, to give them proper role models to aspire to. And I think that in some loyalist communities there is a real shortage of them, because the role models of some of those communities are the local UDA brigadier or whatever. I think those are really bad role models.

“There needs to be somebody within those communities that can actually stand up and who people can maybe follow and inspire and move on. But if they don't do that, and if that doesn't happen, then we're just looking at generation after generation of educational failure, of unemployment, of poverty, of sectarianism, of all the things that plague working class loyalist communities.”

Alan was a member of the former Civic Forum. “I think that it was a great idea. I think it had great potential. I don't think that it was particularly well run or well managed. But I would like to see that idea come back again and I would also like for our politicians not to see any form of civic forum or people's parliament, call it what you will, as a threat to democracy. It's absolutely not. It's an invaluable resource for them, even as a sounding board to get some ideas to have a proper interface with the community, with civil society. And so I would like to see something like that happen again.”

As a victims’ campaigner whose wife and father-in-law were killed in the Troubles, Alan has thought much about how best to deal with the past and legacy issues. “My own preferred way forward would have been to go back to the Consultative Group on the Past report, the Robin Eames and Denis Bradley report. I think it was the best [proposal] and I think every time we've gone for consultation since then we have come back with something which is considerably less than what we had before. I think that the Stormont House Agreement, and the legacy aspects of that, is the last time we can go back to the people... You can't just collectively forget about the past. You have to have some kind of a mechanism to be able to hang the past on. It's happened in South Africa, the Balkans, Chile, Argentina and Rwanda. All of the countries that have had conflict have had something where they were able to hang their past on. What we need in Northern Ireland is one that is tailor-made for our situation. I absolutely believe that what we have with the Stormont House Agreement is tailor-made for our situation... I think that we need to learn from our past.”

Alan believes that the constitutional question needs to be in the open, with an honest discussion about the options and their implications. “I think that what has to happen is that those that are proposing an ‘All Ireland’ have to demonstrate and show people in the unionist community what life would be like living in Northern Ireland. My favoured option is to stay within the union, but only if it's working financially and economically and is equal. I suppose like many people I'm more concerned with my quality of life than I am with the kind of flag that flies... I think that our lot is better in the union, but that was a union that was part of a wider Europe.”

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