Proposals to support thousands of the victims of Northern Ireland's Troubles will be brought before the Assembly this autumn, the First Minister said today.
The Rev Ian Paisley told MLAs that measures to improve services for sufferers and combat the legacy of the past would be introduced early in the new session of the legislature. He was speaking during a debate in the Assembly in Belfast.
"I have a clear message to those victims who still suffer, 'you are not forgotten nor will you ever be forgotten'," he said. "I have discovered that tears have no political colour, they have no religious colour."
The Office of the First and Deputy First Minister is drawing up a strategy on future steps that will be considered by its scrutiny committee.
Dr Paisley was speaking during a motion urging the establishment of a victims' and survivors' forum.
The step was among those advocated by Interim Victims' Commissioner Bertha McDougall in a report in January. The RUC widow also called for the memorial fund for those affected to be phased out and replaced by a more flexible arrangement.
The most controversial part of her report suggested establishing a fund for UDR families similar to the police fund.
Jennifer McCann, Sinn Féin MLA for West Belfast criticised the report. "Nowhere in Bertha Mc Dougall's report is their any mention of collusion or acknowledgment by the British State of its responsibility for, and its role as a protagonist in, the conflict," she said.
Sinn Féin have lobbied against any implementation of Mrs McDougall's paper.