Perhaps any advocacy for inquiries or investigations should be taken from the hands of the politicians full stop. Behind Sinn Fein's calls for investigation into state killings and DUP/UUP calls for inquiry into IRA atrocities are are human beings who have suffered losses. The posturing of our politicians and the way they seem to appropriate the victims cause only seems to muddy any legitimate arguments from those seeking some form of 'truth' or 'justice'. Each party is willing to 'go to the ends of the earth' for their own political agenda and at the same time eschew the other side's needs and concerns. The association with one party or the other instantly colours that victims' campaign to wider society, and leaves it open to being written off as a political issue.

It shouldn't be a political issue, it should be a human one. Lost in all this uncertainty following the on-the-run revelation is that there are people for whom knowledge about the loss of loved ones hangs in the balance, and for whatever intention the politicians have in taking part in their advocacy, it's the people who continue to suffer.