Lord Hain: It is the delay to pension for victims of the Troubles that is absurd, not my criticism of it

(The editorial can be read here: ‘Finding a new victims’ commissioner will not be easy but it was time for change in the post’)

Last July, following an amendment I moved in the House of Lords, Parliament passed legislation under the 2019 Act requiring the Executive Office of the Northern Ireland Assembly to set up and administer a scheme to provide modest payments to those men and women severely injured through no fault of their own during the Troubles.

The scheme was to open for applications on May 29 2020.

The scheme has still not opened. The structures to administer have still not been put in place.

The Executive Office has point blank refused to meet its legal and moral obligations.

What is absurd and disgraceful is that the Executive Office had no intention of telling those severely injured through no fault of their own that they were being denied the payments that parliament had approved until it was exposed just days before the scheme was due to open.

What is absurd and disgraceful is that a woman who at 21 years of age had both her legs torn off in a terrorist atrocity has had to take legal action in the High Court to force ‘current ministers’ to obey the law.

I have also been critical of the current secretary of state.

He has bemoaned the fact that some of the most vulnerable victims of the Troubles are being treated in this way but has done little or nothing about it.

Wringing his hands and sitting on them at the same time is simply not good enough.

In a twist of logic the editorial seeks to absolve the Executive Office from any criticism by referring back to the definition of a victim in the 2006 Order that gave a statutory framework for the office of Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, a definition that specifically does not apply to the Victims Payment Scheme.

I have heard that argument used before but never from a unionist source.

One of the factors behind that order was to ensure that everyone impacted by the Troubles would have access to the services that they and their families would need regardless of their circumstances.

Those services are provided through the NHS, the Victims and Survivors Service and will do through a Mental Trauma Service in the future.

That is as it should be.

We are a civilised society and we do not turn people away.

But this pension for severely Injured Victims is not a service.

It is recognition of the terrible harm — blinded, double amputees and other grievous injuries — done to men and women through no fault of their own.

It is utterly disgraceful that political intransigence is gratuitously adding to their pain and suffering, and I trust the News Letter agrees with me on that at least.

The Right Honourable Lord Hain of Neath, Wesminster

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