Clause 3 - Certificates of eligibility
Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill
11:45 am
We are trying to create closure, truth, openness and justice and we hope that we are making progress. Does the Minister not accept that it would be much better to time limit the scheme? A period of a year and a half or two years to make applications has been suggested, although I think that that is too long. It would be better to have a limit set in law by Parliament, with all the due respect that that would entail, rather than let the scheme start on a “suck it and see” basis, whereby we make it up as we go along. Some feel that our problem is that too many of our laws and regulations have been ad hoc. If the issue were finalised and tightened, would that not create an awful lot more confidence in the Bill?