Victims' groups were established to meet a real and genuine need, to help those who have suffered most over the past decades, and to put in place support and assistance for the bereaved and injured.
For too long we have not been allowed to fulfil this vital and primary function tied up instead in red tape and bureaucracy, applying for endless rounds of short-term funding. The entire sector hangs on a knife-edge due to the uncertainty, of what ca
n only be described as a funding lottery.
Over the years, we as a group have lost half a dozen young, able graduate-level employees whose family commitments could not allow them to hang on in jobs where there was no guarantee that despite great results and progress there would be funding next month. It was often like a game of Russian Roulette, with people's lives reliant on funding that never came.
It is not the issue of money we have been vocal about, but the issue of fair and equal treatment, and after campaigning hard for many years we have finally seen that, as we predicted, it is possible to ensure prompt, professional and practical funding support to groups. This will allow us to do what we were originally set up to do – help victims, this will ensure that real needs are being met and valuable work done.
Finally, politicians and policy makers have begun to understand that groups such as FAIR, with over a decade of experience, know best what victims need. We have approached politicians, such as Jeffrey Donaldson, to outline our case and he said he would do all he could. Today, we have seen the fruits of that as funding has been guaranteed in order to secure three jobs which were about to be lost.
It is clear that funding bodies can, as we maintained, assess and process funding applications for established existing work promptly, with all the protocols in place when they put their minds to it. But I have always given criticism where criticism is due and credit where credit is due, and credit must be registered to all those who made this possible. It means that we can get on with the work for victims instead of fighting for funding.
It is a small step but for the first time a step in the right direction. It must be encouraged and we trust that this is a sign of things to come. We are prepared to move forward in the right direction, not for the lure of money but if we feel our needs are recognised and our objectives realised.
William Frazer
Director
Families Acting for Innocent Relatives
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