The Ulster Unionist Party’s Justice Spokesperson, Doug Beattie MC MLA, has rejected comments by Queens University academic Professor Kieran McEvoy, who told a Westminster committee that the Ulster Unionist Party’s stance on the Stormont House Agreement is ‘morally outrageous.’

Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie MC said:

“I can perfectly understand why certain academics and legal figures – not least someone who is a former chair of the self-proclaimed Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) - might be keen for the Stormont House proposals to be enacted. This is also the position of republicans, not least Sinn Fein.

“Any agreement that puts the interests of victims behind those of the perpetrators is morally corrupt and we make no apology for rejecting proposals that will ignore tens of thousands of innocent victims. We have called for fundamental changes to the SHA legacy proposals - which never enjoyed the support of the Ulster Unionist Party – and we have suggested alternatives.

“We have previously highlighted the many flaws in the Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) in particular the fact that a one-sided process is almost inevitable given that only the State has historical records and that the re-writing of history with a focus on the role of the Police and the Army is the aim of republicans.

“We also note the suggestion that the number of cases to be investigated by the HIU could be increased from 1,700 to well over 3,000. This would make the HIU structurally unworkable and still does not include fatalities in Great Britain or do anything for the tens of thousands of seriously injured.

“With regard to the proposed Independent Commission for Information Retrieval (ICIR), we would simply refer to the recent comments by Gerry Adams at the funeral of former IRA leader Kevin McKenna - “The part played by republicans like Kevin during the long years of war will never be known. The tale will never be told.”

“The Ulster Unionist Party will apologise to nobody for articulating the concerns of innocent victims of terrorism and defending the security forces who bravely stood between the terrorists and the terrorised. We refuse to facilitate the rewriting of history whereby terrorists and their innocent victims are given some kind of moral equivalence. If Kieran McEvoy thinks that is ‘morally outrageous’ then so be it.”