- Working group on historical abuse takes 5 months to set up
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Executive failing survivors of abuse
Ulster Unionist Party Leader, Mike Nesbitt said:
“It has taken five months to get a working group together which gives the lie to the Executive parties’ vow that they would be victims centred. Even when a meeting does take place at the end of this month it will only be to discuss draft terms of reference.
“Those who did fall within the remit of Sir Anthony Hart’s inquiry have already been left in the disgraceful situation where recommendations to meet their needs now have no one to take them forward because the Executive can’t get its act together.
“Now those who did not fall within the Terms of Reference for that inquiry find themselves in a continuing state of limbo. Parties of the failed Executive trumpeted their championing of equality, yet they have created disgraceful circumstances whereby some victims of clerical abuse were given access to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry while others were not, based not on abuse suffered but where the abuse took place.
“This is just utterly shabby treatment of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The war cry of the Executive has been that they will stand up for the vulnerable, yet they continue to fail survivors of historical abuse.”