Speeches by Hanna.

“Dr McAlister, have you picked out anything else on that same question from your research?”

“Whether they like it or not.”

“The SDLP’s priority continues to be funding Northern Ireland on the basis of need, and I urge the Government to take focused action, so that we can have sustainable public services and, hopefully, stable politics that will start to deliver for health and education and deal with the squeeze in housing and childcare. I w…”

“Anyone who saw the six-year-old girl fleeing the flaming shelter where her family were killed by an Israeli air strike will carry those horrific images with them forever. These are very dark days. Gaza is a stain on the soul of humanity, and it is a further shame that there is more moral clarity coming from Ms Rachel o…”

“But can you understand, given that successive courts have said and acknowledged that the current processes are not compliant, that you could retrospectively have challenges from families whose cases have been progressed under the current procedures?”

“Thank you very much for coming before us. I accept that we are all trying to move forward and shape a regime, or a set of processes, that can get people the unvarnished truth, as you say. I am not going to look backwards, but I hope you will acknowledge that referring to critiques as unwarranted criticism, when a numbe…”

“I am hoping to get into some of the experience that you have gained through this and other processes and how it can be applied going forward. In your submission to us, you outline a number of reforms that you think could improve ICRIR’s effectiveness. Have the Government engaged with you effectively? Are there headline…”

“I think colleagues are going to come back on the issues around disclosure and commissioners. Given that the Court of Appeal has found that in the current form, some of your investigations are not Article 2-compliant, particularly around disclosure and next of kin participation, do you accept that in this context—where …”

“The court has found that the processes are not currently, and the new regime is not in place—”

“I am going to come back to disclosure, but I am aware that colleagues want to get in.”

“I want to come back to disclosure. In September, the Court of Appeal said: “the court cannot itself permit disclosure of any sensitive material where the SOSNI’s”—the Secretary of State’s—"permission has been withheld…Overall…this regime offends against the proper aim of the ICRIR” as an organisation “able to conduct t…”

“Do we not have good working examples of people taking that balance into account? Would you agree with what the Chief Constable suggested to us—that the judiciary should weigh the balance of national security versus disclosure? Or should there be a regime in which the duty is on the legacy bodies to disclose unless ther…”

“But you have not given advice, or you have not engaged with the Secretary of State at the NIO on what you think it should look like?”

“In your experience so far, do you have a sense that security services are interested in engaging with you completely and transparently?”

“So you have engaged with the security services so far, and you have found that to be positive.”

“I suppose it has been characterised in different ways by other bodies and others, in terms of their engagement on some of those matters, but I will leave it there.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I think we can give examples that are a lot more recent than 20 years ago of relevant material not being disclosed.”

“But we have had witnesses in the very recent past, including from Kenova, who gave a different account and a different character to their engagement on disclosure—on the information that they were able to access and disclose.”

“And not just Jon—Kenova’s current leadership as well.”