We’re no closer to agreement today than we were more than 10 years ago

IN March 2005, when Secretary of State Paul Murphy announced that there would be a victims and survivors’ commissioner appointed, I made a prediction.

I wrote: “For so long as we have conflict stalemate rather than conflict resolution; and for so long as the constitutional question remains front and centre of politics here, then I don’t see how we move past competing narratives.

“I don’t see how something along the lines of a truth and reconciliation commission could ever work.

“I don’t see how we reach an agreed definition of victim, let alone how we compensate them.

“And since the past is always in front of us in Northern Ireland I don’t see how we ever manage to come to grips with the present, let alone the future.”

Fifteen years on and the latest Secretary of State, Brandon Lewis, has published a paper, Guidance on decision-making for the Victims’ Payments Scheme.

It has been welcomed by the DUP (“This is another small step along the road to innocent victims receiving a pension they rightly deserve”) and dismissed by Sinn Fein (“These latest proposals... on a victims’ pension are exclusionary, discriminatory and unacceptable”).

The competing narratives I wrote about in 2005 remain unresolved, which means the ongoing stalemate will continue.

As it stands, progress depends on Sinn Fein signing off on the nominating of a lead department — the other four Executive parties seem to have agreed on the Department of Justice — to drive forward and make the pension payments.

I don’t see that happening while Sinn Fein remains committed to the delivery of a pension scheme “which meets the need of all victims and excludes no one” — the no one it refers to is former IRA members who might have been injured in other circumstances.

Similarly, I don’t see the DUP agreeing to anything that could be interpreted as allowing any former ‘terrorists’ to be reclassified as ‘victims.’

Is there any possibility of the UK government taking the responsibility for the pension process upon themselves and making the payments?

No. Partly, I think, because it may fear that Sinn Fein would collapse the Assembly again or become deliberately disruptive on other issues; and partly because it really doesn’t want to be landed with such a hot potato right now.

And it is probably worth noting that some unionists, remembering how Johnson treated Northern Ireland in the EU Withdrawal Agreement, wouldn’t be keen on the government taking responsibility anyway, just in case it decided to run with Sinn Fein’s analysis.

Brandon Lewis’s guidance makes clear two things: “Anyone who has a conviction, terrorist or otherwise, which caused serious harm to anyone else, should ordinarily not receive a payment”; and “Those injured at their own hand are excluded”.

The leadership of the unionist parties support that aspect of the guidance, which is why they want the pension scheme to be implemented immediately. But those leaders also know that nothing can be done without Sinn Fein’s imprimatur; the reality of which makes them look weak in the eyes of the very victims they are championing.

So, what is likely to happen? The processing of the payment scheme requires one of two things.

Either Sinn Fein backs down and agrees to the Department of Justice taking the lead, or else the DUP backs down, in effect opening the legislative door to people they regard as terrorists, as well as adding yet another delay to an already tortuously slow progress.

Meanwhile, the victims themselves continue to have indignity, despair and routine setback heaped upon the physical hurt and mental anguish they have endured for years, often decades.

To put it bluntly: it’s a bloody disgrace how they’ve been treated.