The Northern Ireland Office is to announce early in the new year whether or not criminal records of former paramilitaries are to be expunged, a senior official from the office has confirmed. Conor Lally reports.
Ms Mary Bunting, the director of the equality directorate at the office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Stormont, told a conference on former prisoners in Dublin Castle that the Ministers attached to the Northern Ireland Office were currently deliberating on the issue of criminal records.
She told delegates that progress could be expected early in the new year.
However, regardless of what was decided at that stage many people in society in Northern Ireland needed to make changes to ensure that former prisoners could enjoy all the rights of citizenship now that they have been released and the conflict ended.
"In the area of trying to encourage employers to be more innovative and take more risks in terms of employing people with a past, that's an area we need to come to grips with and make more progress with," Ms Bunting said.
She was speaking at a conference called "Building the Peace: The Role of Loyalist and Republican Political Ex-Prisoners", which was organised by the Community Foundation of Northern Ireland.
The secretary general of the Department of Justice, Mr Sean Aylward, said the issue of "spent convictions" for former paramilitaries had already arisen in the context of the Good Friday agreement.
A review of the Employment Equality Act was initiated in the Republic in 2001 regarding a possible widening of the grounds within the legislation under which members of the public could claim discrimination.
Some involved in the review suggested widening the definition of discrimination under the Act to include having a criminal conviction.
The views of the social partners, Equality Authority and other interested parties were being compiled on the issue and would be submitted to the Minster for Justice, Mr McDowell, for review "very soon", Mr Aylward said.
Senator Mary White, who chaired the conference, said she disagreed with Mr Aylward and believed the issue of expunging criminal records should be considered independently of progress on issues in the peace process.