There will be no amnesty in the North

In the past few weeks, a number of reports have appeared in print and electronic media which have conveyed a misleading view of the proposals on dealing with the past contained in the Stormont House Agreement (SHA). Some of these have focused on the Independent Commission for Information Retrieval (ICIR), or on the Implementation and Reconciliation Group (IRG), which are two of four mechanisms proposed in the agreement.

It has been suggested that perpetrators who confess to these bodies will receive an amnesty and that their names will not be made public. The impression has been given that perpetrators of human-rights abuses will be able to escape justice, because of the SHA proposals.

We wish to put the record straight.