Letters to the Editor: It's time to reset the clock on the Troubles

The Commission for Victims and Survivors report is a reminder of how insidious and protracted the legacy of the Troubles has been, write members of the Truth Recovery Process

Then British prime minister Tony Blair and taoiseach Bertie Ahern signing the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. File picture: Dan Chung/PA

The publication of the Report by the Commission for Victims and Survivors (CVSNI) this week, which reveals that 8% of the population of Britain identify as victims of the Irish Troubles, is a badly needed reminder of how insidious and protracted the legacy of the Irish Troubles has been for everyone living on these islands.

It is also a reminder that the Belfast Good Friday Agreement was not, as it is often portrayed, a ‘peace’ agreement but rather a truce that gave political leaders the space to seek alternatives that would lay the ghosts that still regularly foment conflict here, and across the Irish Sea.