'Victimhood' will not bring peace

Republican victimhood will only hold back the healing process in the North, Eoghan Harris said tonight.

Mr Harris said grievances over issues like unsolved murders would hold back the peace process and accused his west Belfast audience of being out of tune with the rest of the island.

“That cultivation of victimhood is not going to bring any peace to this country.

“The Irish people in the south would likely as not regard you as extremely odd people. You appear to have moral problems with the Republican victimhood.”

Mr Harris was appointed to the Seanad earlier this month by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern after an extensive journalistic career which included support for unionists and labour parties.

Mr Harris was speaking at the West Belfast Talks Back discussion forum and was joined by fellow panellists Northern Ireland ministers Caitriona Ruane and Edwin Poots and Policing Board chairman Sir Des Rea before an audience of several hundred from west Belfast and beyond.

The son of murdered Catholic solicitor Pat Finucane, shot dead by the loyalist Ulster Defence Association in 1989 in alleged collusion with the security forces, John, challenged the members to back his family’s long campaign for an independent public inquiry.

“What we ask for is not for revenge,” he said.

He added that victims should have and input into the process.

The British government has appointed an independent commission headed by former Anglican archbishop Lord Robin Eames and former Catholic priest Denis Bradley to develop alternatives for dealing with over 1,800 unsolved murders in Northern Ireland.

However, tonight Mr Poots, the Democratic Unionist culture minister said it was time for republicans to move on.

“If you are going to embed yourself in the past forever you are only going to bring more and more pain upon yourself.

“You are going to let the healing process continue for a period when it should be over and it’s about time that people decided that they should move on and leave the past behind.”