Families of IRA terrorists shouldn't get compensation

In the period between Christmas and New Year archives in both Belfast and Dublin are opened and documents are declassified. This regularly reveals some of the creative thinking which has been expended on the Northern Ireland problem over the years.

Suggestions have included staging an Old Firm duel between Rangers and Celtic in Belfast prior to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and have the Glasgow teams play in the opposing side’s kits. Relocating millions of Hong Kong citizens to the province ahead of its transfer to China was an example of blue sky thinking mooted in the Thatcher era. Such was the quagmire of Ulster, politicians and their advisors would regularly grasp for the surreal.

The families of a whole host of terrorists would be entitled to this bonus on account of having a familial bad apple

A recent missive from the victims and survivors commission – one of the jumble of organisations set up post-1998 to act as guardians of the peace process flame – which was released over the festive period would be a fitting addition to that canon were it not so pernicious. In