In a speech to the McCluskey Civil Rights Seminar in County Louth, Brendan McAllister, a Commissioner at the Commission For Victims and Survivors went public with some figures that I posted in a blog recently.

There are 1.7 million people living in Norn Iron. Of these about 500,000 consider themselves (actually “ourselves”) to have been affected. Clearly I was 17 in August 1969 and 46 at Good Friday 1998. And for the first ten years (1969-79) lived in West Belfast. I have been “affected”.

I am among the 81% (CVSNI figures) that consider I do not need any help “just now”. Although I have known several people who have been killed, I am not among the 10% who can say that they were bereaved (lost a relative). On the other hand my wife lost two cousins. Ironically long before I even met my wife, I was at the funeral of one of these cousins.

There are about 100,000 people who are either getting help to deal with the Past or “would like to access help of some kind”.

I think its fair to say that I have often taunted people in the Conflict Resolution Industry that the victims of the Troubles are much less enthused about “dealing with the Past” than those academics and others who are pressing for the Truth (sic). Indeed the Truth is a middle class obsession. People who yelled and screamed the Truth about Bloody Sunday (an attrocity committed by the British Army), McGurks Bar (an attrocity committed by loyalists)  and Claudy (an attrocity committed by the Irish Republican Army) for forty years. The Middle Class Academics were ignored. Now the Middle Class Academics want to listen (occasionally for a price and occasionally for the purpose of their academic career) but mostly its…………….a kinda yearning that THEY want to part of the narrative that they themselves had avoided for decades. Now the only way that they can feel validated is to LISTEN. And they can only get their fantasy of retrospective involvement if the Victims SPEAK to them.

Let there be doubt that the Conflict Resolution “industry” exists for its own good. Not for the Common Good. Not for the Victims or Survivors. REAL PEOPLE are opposed to…..or (at best) indifferent to “The Truth”. The Eames-Bradley proposals for dealing with the Past were howled down to the consternation of the Conflict Resolutionists. Their proposal of a one-off payment of £12,000 to every victims next of kin was particuarly ridiculed……for different reasons.

Ever anxious to appear relevant, the Commission for Victims and Survivors has identified new areas of victimhood, needing its healing hands. Victims of “ordinary crime”, victims of Institutional and Church abuse……and the bizarre “manipulative and exploitative bankers, financial speculators and property developers”…….all identified as a growing constituency. In the rush to appear relevant to those 400,000 non-compliant victims and survivors, the Commission deals with the problem by extending its remit.

Its pathetic.