Opinion

Alex Kane: Entire Executive should hang its head in shame over victims' pension shambles

Alex Kane

Alex Kane

Alex Kane is an Irish News columnist and political commentator and a former director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party.

Victims Commissioner Judith Thompson described the public stand-off as "cruel, callous and insulting" to Troubles victims. Picture by Cliff Donaldson
Victims Commissioner Judith Thompson described the public stand-off as "cruel, callous and insulting" to Troubles victims. Picture by Cliff Donaldson Victims Commissioner Judith Thompson described the public stand-off as "cruel, callous and insulting" to Troubles victims. Picture by Cliff Donaldson

Lord Hain, former Northern Ireland secretary of state (2005-07), was in powerful form in the House of Lords on Tuesday evening, on the subject of the victims of the Troubles: "They had been expecting a pension to help them better survive in the last period of their lives, backdated to the Stormont House Agreement of December 2014. But they discovered last month, days before the scheme was due to commence, that nothing has been done. As you would expect they are devastated. How can politics have sunk so low that a severely injured victim, maimed for life in a terrorist atrocity decades ago, has been forced to put the devolved administration on notice of judicial action to force it to honour its moral and legal obligations?"

Shortly after the Stormont House Agreement was published I did some commentary on Good Morning Ulster. A letter was forwarded to me a couple of days following the interview, from a man who had been left with life-changing injuries after a terrorist attack: "I don't expect anything to come from this. We aren't front and centre. We are sidelined and forgotten. Most of us will die before the parties have resolved it and I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what they want." When I spoke to him after the Executive was rebooted in January he remained as pessimistic as ever.

Sadly and shockingly his pessimism has been justified. Again. Even more shockingly, I'm pretty sure that if a poll were conducted with the thousands of people who would be eligible for the pension scheme most of them would express no surprise whatsoever about yet another delay. They're used to delay. They're used to being told that politicians are working 'in your interests,' yet always prepared for that likely new hurdle which those politicians won't be able to clear.

The latest delay is unforgivable. A thumping, utterly avoidable, woefully shameful, bloody disgrace. The government says the pensions should be funded by the Executive out of its block grant. But the Executive argues that since the scheme was legislated for at Westminster that's where the funding should come from. But here's what I don't understand: if resolution hadn't been reached on funding why was it even announced that the scheme would open for applicants on May 29?

How do they think this makes the victims feel? "Dear me, we're terrible sorry you're in a wheelchair; or on crutches; or in constant physical and mental pain; or having to care for or be cared for; or forced to live with recurring nightmares; or always wondering what your life would have been like had you not been in that place at that time. But we're not so sorry that we can agree which of us should fund your pension."

Talk about adding the latest insult to a lasting injury. Talk about kicking people when they're down. Talk about heaping humiliation on those who have lived with pain for years on end. Talk about the additional offence and hurt to the families of the victims. As I've already said - a bloody disgrace.

What's not completely clear (unless I've just missed it) is why the funding source hadn't been sorted at the get-go. Is there a key disagreement between the DUP and Sinn Féin on who should pay? But if there is, why would they press ahead with a just-asking-for-trouble announcement? Are we back on RHI territory again, where it became clear - far too late - that the Executive had assumed that central government was picking up the tab? Have no lessons been learned from that fiasco? Did no civil servant, or minister, or special adviser ask the crucial question: who is paying for this and have they agreed to pay for it?

And did anyone, anywhere within the system, even bother to flag up the hurt which would be caused to victims and their families if the pension scheme became another casualty of what sometimes looks like the Executive's fondness for institutional mess-ups? Or was it simply another case of putting out a good news press release and hoping that all the ducks would have quacked their way into alignment just in time for the scheme to open?

As ever, we may never know the full reasons for this latest cock-up. Again, as ever, we will never know the sheer scale of the latest hurt - including mental anguish - inflicted upon the victims themselves. The entire Executive should hang their heads in shame. They won't.