“appalled and humiliated”

The Police Federation Conference yesterday was attended by NI Secretary Shaun Woodward, and while he released a bland if optimistic statement other statements generated more interesting headlines. Some of the missing detail from that RTÉ report is included in the Belfast Telegraph coverage – and, if you have the time, UTV’s Ivan Little’s video report[approx 1/3 into programme].

Some Executive Ministers and other MLAs would be “appalled and humiliated” if details of their past activities were exposed by a truth commission, the head of the Police Federation said yesterday.

And Terry Spence also had some recommendations for the Eames/Bradley group – more below the fold.

From the Belfast Telegraph report

He said the Consultative Group on the Past, currently examining ways of dealing with the past under Lord Eames and Denis Bradley, “must address the legacy of the past with the widest possible remit”.

“They should look for an answer which does not saddle this generation and its successors with the world’s largest re-investigation industry,” Mr Spence told Secretary of State Shaun Woodward and 150 delegates.

“We need, if not a one size fits all solution to dealing with the past, then an approach or even a multitude of approaches which allows the individuality of grief to find expression and, through time, eventual comfort.

“There can be no truth commission included in their recommendations,” he said. And, in an apparent reference to Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, he added: “Especially when one of the leading proponents of a truth commission cannot even admit that he was in the IRA.”

Of course, despite the March for Half-Truth, Gerry Adams also told a recent interviewer

“So we can poke through the embers of the last 30 years, and in fairness I’m not very interested in doing that.”

Poisonous foundations and all that..

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