Troubles pension delay might well be related to the bid to exclude terrorists from it

It is a complex problem that has its origins in many different factors, such as the need to get agreement from apologists for terrorism before any approach to tackling the past can be advanced.

One key element in the scandal is the definition of a victim, which took the idea of neutrality to unprecedented levels. The definition of a victim is explained in Article 3 of the Victims and Survivors (Northern Ireland) Order 2006. It includes this description of a victim: “Someone who is or has been physically or psychologically injured as a result of or in consequence of a conflict-related incident.”

Thus a mass murderer is a victim if they accidentally blow themselves up in a bombing bid.

Even before that legal definition republicans said any other definition created a hierarchy of victims. The UK has been weak in response, as with other republican demands.

This weakness has delayed pensions for victims and survivors for years. It is an immense moral scandal.

Doug Beattie, a critic of the legacy capitulation to terror, is right to wonder (see page 16) if the pension delay is not just about cost but because the UK belatedly seemed to be trying to prevent people injured by their terror being paid (seemed being a key word – it might yet go to them).

It would be no surprise if that dispute was central to the delay, thus magnifying the scandal.