The ongoing failure of the Irish authorities to engage with a commission for investigating unsolved Troubles murders has left bereaved families incredibly frustrated, its chief commissioner has said.
Sir Declan Morgan said the stance of the Irish government was also the source of extreme frustration among staff working within the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).
The chief commissioner was giving evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster on issues related to the body’s work.
It was created by the last Conservative government as part of its contentious Legacy Act.
The current UK government committed to major reforms of the commission as part of a joint framework on dealing with the legacy of the Troubles agreed with the Irish government.
Those changes have not yet been enacted at parliament and while the Irish government has made commitments to engage with the body and share information with its investigators, it has made clear it will not do so until the reforms become law, insisting the commission in its current format is not human rights compliant.
Earlier this month it emerged that the commission had written to the Garda on eight occasions to request information on cases that, in total, involve 10 murders and had yet to receive any replies.
Committee members Robin Swann, from the Ulster Unionists, and DUP leader Gavin Robinson were among those to ask Sir Declan about the stance of the Irish authorities during Wednesday’s sitting.
He said the lack of information flow from the Republic of Ireland was affecting the way in which the commission has been able to develop.
“There are a group of cases which haven’t come to us, because the victims and survivors feel that they will not get answers to their questions unless Ireland is going to play its part in providing information,” he said.
“We have people who have come to us where there’s a requirement for information from Ireland, and for those people it’s incredibly frustrating to find that their case is not able to proceed in the way that it should have as a result of the failure.
“And if Ireland’s position is that it’s not going to do anything until the new bill is in place, then it becomes extremely frustrating that we are going to be left in this situation and having to deal with people who are faced with quite considerable delay before important aspects of their case can be investigated, and that inevitably is going to create frustration.”
Sir Declan said it also remained unclear whether the Irish government would ultimately allow the ICRIR the same level of access to sensitive documents that it would have when interacting with UK state agencies.
The committee hearing also focused on the findings of a recent critical independent review of governance within the ICRIR that was carried out by former senior Stormont civil servant Peter May.
Mr May’s review identified evidence of a “toxic” and “divided” working culture inside the organisation.
The ICRIR’s Commissioner for Investigations Peter Sheridan acknowledged the findings of the report.
He told MPs he believed the issues identified around culture related to the fact the commission was a “classic example of a system under strain”.
“People describe it as a toxic culture, I describe it as people under stress constantly, with victims coming in and people doing their level best in an organisation where, you’ve heard the old adage, (it’s a case of) of trying to fly the plane and build it at the same time.
“We were not a mature organisation that failed to maintain standards. We were a startup organisation that were expected to perform as a mature organisation from day one, under demand that outstripped every projection.”
Sir Declan said frustration over a lack of adequate funding to cover the workload was also a contributory factor to some of the concerns raised within the review.
“I think there’s been frustration, which has been at least a part of it,” he said.
“We had an assessment of what do we need in order to do the job – we have half the staff that we need to do the job, half the resource to do the job.
“And we’re waiting to see how and when we might be able to correct that.
“This is over two years on that we find ourselves in this situation and, understandably, I think that does create frustration, and that is certainly a contributory factor, but it can’t be an excuse for conduct that ended up making people feel disrespected, and I think that’s my point.”
The committee was told that the commission is currently working on 123 live investigations.
Alliance MP Sorcha Eastwood questioned why no final investigation reports had yet been issued to families despite £60 million having been spent on the ICRIR to date.
Mr Sheridan outlined the complexity and resource-intense nature of handling investigations into some of the most notorious, mass fatality atrocities of the Troubles.
Sir Declan told MPs that he expected the first report to issue “within a matter of weeks”.
Mr May gave evidence to the committee separately on Wednesday.
He expressed confidence that the culture within the ICRIR could be changed.
“All organisations face challenges as they grow, particularly this one is operating in a politically challenging environment, so there is a need, there was a need to take steps to enhance the performance of the organisation, but I do think the progress is being made,” he said.
Mr May added: “I think all organisations are capable of changing their culture… this is a new organisation.
“I think one of the challenges is that it’s drawn people – one of its strengths and challenges – is that it’s drawn people from many different backgrounds, so from policing backgrounds, from other investigative backgrounds, from civil service backgrounds, legal backgrounds, and those people will all arrive at the organisation with slightly different expectations or experiences of how organisations work.
“And I think my observation would be that the commission, because it was running hard to try to meet the needs of the initial cases that have come in, probably haven’t spent the time it needed to try and work out what was the commission’s culture, what was the approach that was going to be acceptable and desirable within the organisation.”
