Mike Nesbitt Interview

Mike Nesbitt- Commission for Victims and Survivors


What were you doing when you were my age?

At nineteen, I was at Jesus College Cambridge studying English. After that I came back to Belfast and signed up for the business management course at Queen’s for a year.

How did you get to where you are now?

Around that time I wrote to the BBC to see if I could get the presenter to read out a report that I would do on the weekends sport. They contacted me about being short of people on the radio side, and that’s how by total chance I got started.
That first year I did weekends and got offered some weekday shifts as holiday relief. I became a freelance sports reporter by accident, until 1986 when the presenter of ‘Good Morning Ulster’ went to work for RTE, so I put myself in for that, got the job, and was there for five days a week on my own. Then I took a break for two years, working as MD for a PR firm, then UTV brought me in and did all news and current affairs for thirteen years, then left, wrote a book, did some media consultancy work, and then applied for this job.

How did your coverage of the troubles influence your decision to apply for the role of Victim’s Commissioner?

Well that was obviously the Genesis of it. I was thinking of a programme we did a few days after the Shankill bomb and it was live TV where we just allowed people to speak. The first we talked to, Charlie Butler, who was a taxi driver, had been parked around the corner when it went off. He did what any decent person would do and helped in searching through the rubble. He said he lifted a particular piece of brick and he got a glimpse of a bright-multicoloured girls coat, the sleeve of it. He knew two things immediately. First it was the same coat he seen given to his niece on her birthday a couple of weeks before, and second that he knew there were no two coats like it on the Shankill Road; so he knew he was about to pull his niece’s body out of the rubble. We just let him tell his story, and although it may not seem an awful lot, but on ‘Good Morning Ulster’ you would speak to someone for three minutes and then go on to the weather or sport, so I wanted to get in a bit deeper and longer and that’s why I'm here.

Originally you had applied under the assumption there would be a single Commissioner, so what were your views in hearing there would be four?

After being very surprised and having the proposition put to me I got looking at the work programme and it is clearly more than a one-person job.


Whenever the legislation is implemented, what will your day-to-day duties involve?

The first thing we have to do; and it is a legislative imperative, is to agree a work plan with OFMDFM. We cannot spend a penny unless it is part of that work programme. My particular interest lies in education and opportunities that should be available to victims and survivors. There’s also the question about teaching and learning the conflict, and business links.

Do you recognise the problems in encouraging victims to come forward, especially those who for years have been left to grieve on their own without seeking recognition?

Reaching individuals is probably the biggest challenge. The problem also comes that we are talking as if they are a homogenous group of people. They are absolutely different. If you take Omagh for instance, there are some people who have dedicated their lives in pursuit of justice, and others have taken nothing to do with it, the legal action or the support groups. You can’t put a valued judgement on one group over the other; they are both equally valued outlooks. There are others who don’t want you to reach out, but as long as they know that you’re there for them then it is perfectly valued to say thanks but no thanks.

Is this the right time for a Victims Commission to be established?

I think it is decades too late. Quite simply we should have been doing this right from the start.

What do you value most in your life?

Family. I have two boys, a wife, my mother is still alive, and my brother and sister.

Who was the most influential person in your life?

A teacher, his name was David Young. He taught English and lit a fire within me for English literature. He convinced me to try being better than the mediocre middle of the class kind of student.

Where do you see Ireland in 10 years time?

I see it wherever you want to take us. I would be very keen now that I am fifty to see my children’s generation take it forward. Politicians are there to provide leadership and address the concerns of their constituency, but also to take things forward, and possibly for once the last of those is now being realised.