Former bombers are showered in cash, while Omagh bomb victims must prove they deserve compensation ... a double standard that would make even Kafka blush
Take the money back from those who should never have had it in the first place and give it to those who should never have been forced to wait for it, says Eilis O’Hanlon
t’s been 20 years since the Omagh massacre. In that time, there have been four prime ministers, four f irst ministers, four taoisigh and no fewer than 10 secretaries of state for Northern Ireland. Those who were children at the time have gone through school and university, grown up, star ted families of their own. The world is a dif ferent place.
But still some victims of the 1998 attack by the Real IR A are waiting for compensation as the Co Tyrone town marks the 20th anniversar y of the atrocity today.
To make matters worse, some of those who were made to wait longest to get what is rightfully theirs were among the most seriously injured in the blast.
Donna Marie McGillion, now 42, suffered burns to most of her body and was given only a 20% chance of sur vival. It took her 14 years to receive appropriate compensation, an experience she describes as “so, so traumatic and so long and drawn out”.
“There is an onus on you to prove ever y thing,” is how she puts it, perfectly summing up what many of those who suffered at the hands of homegrown terrorists increasingly feel, namely that it ’s they who have to justif y their ver y existence, while the self- ser ving word of those who ruined their lives is accepted without question.
Thankfully, Donna Marie had a good solicitor to guide her through the process, but sometimes even that’s not enough to get satisfaction. The Department of Justice has confirmed that t wo cases arising from the Omagh bombing, which murdered 31 people, including a woman pregnant with t wins, are outstanding.
That’s t wo victims who, years af ter being caught up in one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles, are still being asked to “prove” their entitlement to help. To say that’s t wo too many doesn’t get near to describing the injustice of it all.
It doesn’t matter how of ten one hears about the raw deal faced by victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland, it still never fails to shock when the extent of the unfairness is laid bare in this way. There appears to be endless amounts of cash available to throw at those who don’t deser ve it.
So- called “community groups” — some involving hangers- on who, all things considered, should probably still be in jail for the crimes they committed — have enriched themselves enormously by working the system in their favour.
Plenty of middle- class professionals are also making a comfor table liv ing from managing these legacy issues in the public sector. The only ones who’ve been forgotten, as free money is scattered around like confetti at a wedding, are the actual victims. Those who suffered are supposed be reassured by the fact they have a Commission for Victims and Survivors batting on their behalf, but what does that office actually do? If people who’ve been seriously injured by terrorists can be ignored for decades, then what is it even for?
If there’s one thing on which both sides of the political divide ought to be able to agree it ’s that the victims of terrorism should be treated with decency. It’s not as if there aren’t huge numbers of families affected.
More than 3,700 people died during the Troubles and a f urther 35,000 were injured. But while victims are pushed to the forefront of the political agenda periodically, there’s never any follow-up to ensure they stay there. The bereaved and injured are lef t in limbo.
Being forced to f ight for what should have been freely given years ago f i xes them back in a moment in their lives that they’d rather forget. They must relive that day endlessly. Ongoing f inancial hardship and delays in medical treatment only add to their distress.
On the f irst anniversar y of the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London, the authorities were criticised for not f inding suitable accommodation for all the families displaced by the f ire within a year, as promised.
Critics of the Government said victims had been let down by the system and few would quarrel with that. Now, mul- tiply that 12-month-long wait by a factor of 20: that’s what some victims of the Omagh bombing have had to endure. Yet, it causes lit tle more than a shrug of resignation in political circles when it ought to cause collective shame.
It’s not only the people of Omagh who’ve been abandoned. Jayne Olurunda’s Nigeria-born father, Max, burned to death in January 1980 af ter the train on which he was travelling was blown up by the IR A in what it later claimed was an accident caused by the “war situation”.
Her mother suffered undiagnosed post-traumatic stress in the af termath, as a result of which Jayne and her t wo sisters endured a dreadful childhood. They tried “numerous times” to get someone to care, she later recalled, but “we have never been helped”.
Provo bomber Patrick Flynn ser ved a mere six years in jail for that attack, which also killed a Protestant teenager by the name of Mark Cochrane. In 2016, Flynn’s daughter was selected as a Sinn Fein MLA for West Belfast, while the Olurundas were reportedly planning to leave Northern Ireland.
There are countless, heart-rending stories such as this, but ever y ef for t to show compassion to innocents
caught up in events over which they had no control invariably founders on an altar of moral equivalence, as those who carried out the violence tr y to appropriate the role of victims for their own sick ends.
The 2009 report by former churchmen Lord Eames and Denis Bradley on dealing with the past was ultimately rejected by a majority in Northern Ireland, because it proposed giving a £12,000 payment to the nearest relative of ever yone killed in violence since 1966, regardless of who they were, or how they died.
Here’s a radical proposal: why not just adopt the definition of a victim as understood by most ordinar y people? In other words, accept that there is, indeed, a hierarchy of victims — and rightfully so — and that the most deser ving of sympathy and help are those who were killed, or injured, through no fault of their own, rather than losing life and limb as a result of being up to no good.
Taking that approach would have ensured that victims of the Omagh bombing received ever y assistance when they most needed it, rather than being made to feel, as Donna Marie McGillion describes it, that they are “begging”.
Money is no object when it comes to buying off former bombers. Why not just take it back from those who should never have had it in the f irst place and give it to those who should never have been made to wait?
The Department of Justice has confirmed that two cases arising from the bombing are outstanding
Here’s a proposal? Why not adopt the definition of a victim as understood by most ordinary people?