| Friday 27th November, 2009 You are here: Home - 27th November 2009 Index Page - 27th November 2009 Editorial |
Editorial
Church’s Submission On CGP Recommendations
It is good that the Church of Ireland’s submission to the Northern Ireland Office on the recommendations of the Consultative Group on the Past (CGP), drawn up by a specially appointed Standing Committee working group, at the outset states that it intends to focus on the moral aspects of the CGP report, as opposed to more political aspects. However, in expressing ambivalence over the issue of a uniform ‘recognition payment’ to the families of those who died as a result of the Troubles, including families of terrorists, the working group did not properly address a profoundly moral issue. Then again, the submission agrees with the establishment of a Legacy Commission, which has many ramifications, but this is not a proposal the acceptance of which can so easily be taken for granted within the Church of Ireland in Northern Ireland in particular. Moreover, Legacy Commission issues take up much of the material in the consultation document.
Although in its comment on the ‘recognition payment’ recommendation the Church working group’s submission states that there is no consensus to support the proposal, the submission does not reject the proposal on grounds of principle, and the working group marked the ‘Other’ box rather than the ‘No’ box for its verdict on whether the proposal should be implemented. The working group thus objected on pragmatic grounds rather than grounds of principle. However, it is precisely the moral equivalence principle involved here that has been so widely, and rightly, rejected. This issue is so heated not because of the families themselves, it should be said, but because the proposal implies a moral equivalence of terrorists and their victims. Gazette experience suggests that there could hardly be a greater understatement regarding the ‘recognition payment’ than the one offered in the working group’s submission: "The feedback from members of the Church of Ireland is mixed and some have expressed the view that the proposed £12,000 payment is an insensitive and blunt instrument."
It is sometimes asked why there is so much concentration on the ‘recognition payment’ recommendation; the answer surely has different dimensions but is no doubt in large part that it symbolizes a vital issue at stake, namely, a historical philosophy of what was going on in the Troubles. Not least because of the seriousness of this NIO consultation, one would expect that the Standing Committee would thoroughly discuss and approve any submission before it was forwarded to the NIO. That did not happen in this case, however.
The process surrounding this submission takes various ‘twists and turns’. First, we learnt that the NIO launched its consultation in June with a 2nd October deadline for submissions. Then we learnt that the working group did not have its submission ready for consideration by the Standing Committee on 15th September. Then we learnt that the Church would not release the text that it had sent to the NIO, intending to do so when the NIO eventually released its own summary of submissions. Then we learnt that the Standing Committee on 17th November ratified the submission retrospectively, publishing it two days later. Then we learnt that that November Standing Committee had not had hard copies of the submission circulated with the notices; members were told how to access the 112-page document via the Internet with the option of printing it out themselves, or could request a hard copy. However, whatever about its length, hard copies of such a vital and sensitive submission to the NIO should have been sent to all Standing Committee members.
The Gazette has learnt from a reliable source that at the November Standing Committee, which retrospectively ratified the submission, it appeared that most people in fact did not have the submission in front of them. We were also told that there was little comment and no debate on the submission, coming as it did towards the end of the agenda. Indeed, if people do not have a document in front of them, discussion of its contents is, to say the least, very difficult. In any case, of course, the submission had already been sent to the NIO. It is nonetheless disturbing that this matter was not fully discussed before the submission was ratified.
All of this amounts to an unsatisfactory procedure, which definitely needs to be reviewed for future reference. If documents are so lengthy that it is deemed not practicable to circulate hard copies, at least an executive summary highlighting major points should be provided on paper. That was not done in this case and now a submission, which itself is not satisfactory, has long gone to the NIO. The good intentions of those involved in this whole scenario are not in question. Indeed, one recognises that much effort was invested in preparing the submission. However, aspects of the thinking in the working group and the lack of appropriate Standing Committee scrutiny before it was sent to the NIO have together led to what, all in all, is an unfortunate outcome.