Helen Hayes – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what steps she has taken to establish on a statutory basis an Implementation and Reconciliation Group as proposed in the Stormont House Agreement.

Mr Ben Wallace

The Government intends to introduce the Northern Ireland (Stormont House Agreement) Bill to Parliament soon. This Bill will deliver on a number of key commitments in the Stormont House Agreement related to addressing the legacy of the Troubles. It will create the legislative framework for: the Historical Investigations Unit, the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval, and an Oral History Archive.

Another of the key commitments in the Agreement is the establishment of the Implementation and Reconciliation Group (IRG). It is not currently envisaged that the IRG will be included in the Northern Ireland (Stormont House Agreement) Bill, but the UK Government stands ready to assist on matters related to the IRG if requested to do so by the Northern Ireland parties.