It is impossible not to be angry for the victims and relatives of the Omagh bombing in their protest over allegedly "degrading treatment" at the hands of compensation inquiry lawyers. Newspaper readers and listeners to radio over the past 36 hours will have been given details of women obliged to undress to their underwear in the presence of male lawyers and of gratuitous comments which, if true, are surely disgraceful.
The former Victims' Commissioner, Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, has made the point that it is necessary and right that there be a proper examination of claims for compensation. But the levels of insensitivity displayed towards some claimants has been unacceptable. The standard which he would like to see applied would be what he would wish for his own relatives, were they victims, he said.
It would have been thought that any physical examination in this context would be a matter for medical personnel, perhaps in some instances assisted by persons suitably qualified in cosmetic treatments. And it would be assumed that any such examinations would be undertaken in conditions of absolute privacy. There is something medieval about employing people who are, in effect, laymen, in this role.
Not for the first time, the harsh persona of Northern Ireland officialdom has added further hurt and injury to those who have already suffered more than most of us can imagine. The years of the Troubles have been marked by many reports of derisory compensation for the loss of a loved one or a bread-winner or for the loss of limbs or senses. That harshness has not been limited by affiliation or inflicted upon one community as distinct from another. Some of those most miserably provided for have been the widows and children of murdered police and prison officers.
The Northern Ireland Office has begun an inquiry into these most recent reports. It is to be hoped that it will not confine itself to ticking off one or two counsel. Barristers work to the brief given by their clients and seek to achieve a particular result. The client in this instance is the Northern Ireland Compensation Agency and behind the Agency stands the British government, represented in this instance by the Minister, Mr Des Browne. The Omagh victims are entitled to their dignity and it is the duty of the government to ensure that the bureaucracy gives it to them.