We Meet Paisley and Orde

15th March 2007

Yesterday afternoon was interesting. Clara, Pauline and Theresa met with Senator John Kerry the former Democratic cadidate for US President. They had a fruitful discussion with him about the need for US intervention on dealing with the past.

Today started with the Northern Ireland Bureau Breakfast. This is one of those "must be at" events for many.

The other one was last night - the IFI Dinner. A tux and bow tie affair which at $1000 a head was a bit rich for our delegation's blood but some got their meals bought for them - like the Chief Constable and 7 members of the Policing Board who had their own table. They all flew here first class and have rooms in a top hotel right at the hert of the action. But the public purse stumps up for that bill. And of course the public needs the Policing Board to have 7 members go doesn't it? Isn't the reason obvious? No? Well it must be a very good reason for it to be so lacking in obviousness.

We have our sponsors to thank for getting us here at all and our economy seats were just fine and our hotel way out in the suburbs is clean and the staff are lovely.

But we digress... The Breakfast was attended by all kinds of characters including ourselves.

We bumped into Ian Paisley jnr and wished him the very best for meeting the deadline for devolution - victims need local accountability too... He was a bit peeved at us over the challenge to Bertha McDougall's appointment, we discussed it for a while and agreed to disagree over whether it is right to legally challenge public appointments are clearly made for improper political purpose and how this is not about any individual. But we did agree that all victims' needs must be addressed and victims supported. So all in all a positive discussion leaving plenty more to discuss.

Mark Thompson had a long chat with Hugh Orde. Hugh agrees that the past needs to be strategically addressed but wasn't so keen when Mark raised the recent arrests of Vincent McAnespie and Gerry McGeough by C2 on the grounds of suspicion in being involved in the attempted murder of a UDR member at the start of the '80s. Mark pointed out that this stood in stark contrast to the lack of response by the HET to the outstanding murder of Vincent's brother Aidan by the British Army. No public arrests and publicity machine for that one! But Hugh stood by the HET who don't make arrests in historic cases - which is what they are meant to do - and by the rest of the PSNI who do make arrests in historic cases which he has said they shouldn't be doing - who would be a chief constable with all of those contradictions? And when he heard the term political policing - well, he near went off his croissants!

Dawn Purvis, newly elected MLA for East Belfast, and leader of the Progressive Unionist Party sat down to find herself next to Raymond McCord snr. Raymond had a chat with her asking her opinion about the UVF murder of his son, the lack of response from her party to the Police Ombudsman's report which found systemic collusion between RUC Special Branch and the UVF and the contrived coverup of his son's murder by the Special Branch. He also asked her opinion about the lack of UVF decommissoning and indeed the lack of political pressure on her party for UVF decommissioning. Dawn's line on all of this is that it is not a matter for her. Which is more than a little disappointing when she described herself as a "New Dawn" on her election posters.

So we have had better breakfasts, especially in the home of Clara Reilly, but not many as interesting as that one.

This afternoon we are off to meet the chiefs of staff for Hilary Clinton, Brack Obama and Ted Kennedy as a prelude to meeting the public representatives themselves. And then we are meeting up with Mrs Nuala O'Loan who is here too.

Peter Hain's office phoned to ask us to attend the British Ambassador's St Patrick's event. So we are delighted to go along to that on behalf of the hundreds of families who have put their faith in us to raise British state involvement in the killings of their loved ones.