FORMER NORTHERN Ireland police ombudsman Nuala O'Loan has expressed concern about the current situation in the North.
Fears about the impact of the political impasse between the DUP and Sinn Féin have also been voiced by former intermediary between the IRA leadership and the British Government, Brendan Duddy.
Both were addressing a conference on the politics of peace and conflict hosted at NUI Galway over the weekend by the Political Studies Association of Ireland.
Ms O'Loan, who is Ireland's special envoy to Timor-Leste (East Timor) but stressed that she was speaking in a personal capacity, said that people seeking peace "cannot become complacent".
Recent research on conflict zones presented at a conference in Oslo, Norway, had shown that the average length of a peace agreement was five years, and the average length of non-violence was 15 years unless sufficient structures were in place, she said.
From her experience, direct contact was very important but the "most important" point was to "keep trying", even when it appeared that little was being achieved, as "the very process of trying helps to transform participants".
Resolving policing injustice was "paramount", as in every conflict zone in the world, and the trauma experienced by victims and wider society had to be acknowledged.
"It is very clear that much remains to be done," Ms O'Loan said, expressing concern about continued paramilitary violence and recent arms finds. "We are now in a very tense place, we don't have consolidated clear peace, and we do have the danger of a vacuum," she warned, at a time when "major problems" relating to healthcare and provision of infrastructure needed to be tackled.
Similar concerns were expressed by Brendan Duddy, intermediary between the IRA leadership and the British Government between 1973 and 1993.
Known as the "secret peacemaker", Mr Duddy's key role in liaising between British intelligence and the IRA was revealed in a recent BBC documentary of the same name by journalist Peter Taylor. "What is worrying at the moment in the North is that it seems that there is a fatalism, and it seems as if we have almost learned nothing over the last 40 years," Mr Duddy said.
"Egos and a failure to compromise are ignoring the greater good," he said. Mr Duddy noted that the documentary had not been screened in the Republic.