In recent weeks the WAVE Trauma Centre has made the headlines with its continued campaign for a special pension to support victims and survivors, people who have suffered horrendous injuries during the Troubles through no fault of their own.

Such injuries have left many victims unable to enter employment or build up occupational pensions; rather, they have have left them to survive solely on state benefits. Careers, wages and savings, things the rest of us take for granted through our ability to work, have all been stripped away from these victims and thus, such survivors of brutal attacks during the Troubles are barely surviving on what financial state support they receive.

Too often we hear both parties of government spout about the injustices that occurred during the Troubles on sides; but so far we have yet to see any real advancement in dealing with the legacy of the past, causing victims, such as those in the WAVE Trauma Group, to daily relive the injustices of the past.

Once again, the issue boils down to the impasse of the DUP/SF coalition which cannot and will not agree on a definition of a victim. The DUP believe that those injured as a result of their own actions should not qualify for any type of special pension, whilst Sinn Féin refute this entirely believing that there should be no hierarchy of victims.

Such diametrically opposed views are indicative of a government unable to confront outstanding issues. Its parties consider ‘parading’ to be either so pivotal or threatening to wider society that they have to pass the issue to a quasi-judicial body. Yet the same government, who provided little more than five fluffy short sentences regarding victims in the ironically named ‘Fresh Start Agreement’, would allow legacy issues to linger in the benches of the Assembly and use the debate only as a means for political grandstanding.

The impasse has unfortunately diluted this down to whether or not the government should award a special pension to all victims – innocent or otherwise – or instead compensate none.

The temptation here is to think that we as citizens should have the answer to this question. But in reality that decision lies at the feet of both the DUP and Sinn Féin, who need to move this issue forward and fast; many victims have already passed away and never received the financial compensation of which they so were deserving.