Peter Robinson has given us some indication of the type of truth commission he would like.

Speaking on Radio 4 on Saturday evening, he said that he would envisage some arrangement by which people would get to tell their stories in a non-contentious, uncontested, manner.

That is, he does not envisage a judicial procedure which will lead to agreement on responsibility and blame.

That could be construed as a generous step by the leader of a party which was founded on the principle that republicans were the beginning and the end of the problem in Northern Ireland.

But it might also be read as a concern to cover for those on the British and loyalist wings of political activism who might be embarrassed if details of their past activities were played out in an open forum and had judgement passed on them.

However, it also smacks of simple realism. It is not really conceivable that an agreed version of the causes of conflict in Northern Ireland can be reached, when two communities have such divergent understandings of the past and such different hopes for the future.

So why not just let everyone have their say in a context in which no one will disagree with them and a major archive of our experiences of the Troubles can be established and preserved?

This is an idea which is also being developed within the commission victims and survivors where Mike Nesbitt is among those exploring the possibility of a major online resource of Troubles experiences.

There is one weakness in that idea which Mike himself should be acquainted with. Many of the victims have already told their story. Many have told their story many times.

The BBC, a few years ago, ran a daily series of stories told by a victim in their own words, unchallenged by any journalist.

I remember at the time that the producers were trawling long and hard for people to record. It wasn't always easy to find enough of them.

There may indeed be many people — I'm sure there are — who have never spoken on radio or television or to a newspaper journalist about their grief and experience. In many cases it must be because they didn't want to.

But we are moving towards some big project that will invite them again to talk about what they have suffered and lost.

And the indications are that there will be no structure imposed on them, perhaps even no questions asked.

And of what value will this be? Well, perhaps it will create an enormous resource for writers and academics of the future, mountains of online evidence, unsifted and unshaped.

Will anyone else want to listen to it?

How many of us will give time to playing recordings of people's memories? How many will take the trouble to listen to those with whom they are likely to disagree?

Another development on reconsideration of the past is that the Secretary of State Shaun Woodward has announced a period of consultation on the Eames Bradley report. As I recall, the Eames Bradley group was called ‘the consultative group on the past'.

So, we are to have a consultation on a consultation. Eames and Bradley and their team have consulted widely and condensed their findings into an understanding of what would be best for victims.

The NIO trusted them to do that. But since no one appears to like their conclusion we've all to be consulted again, on that conclusion, presumably in the hope that this time the people of Northern Ireland, and particularly the victims, will turn out to want something else instead.

The idea of a massive archive of stories is one alternative to a commission of enquiry such as Eames and Bradley envisaged.

Interestingly, no one is suggesting that the task of re-evaluating the past can simply be aborted.

Everyone knows that something has to be done. Everyone knows that one way or another it will be expensive. It's just that no one knows what to do.

I have heard a rumour that some in the Conservative party, who quite reasonably expect to be the next government, would like to bury the whole project in a one-off, expensive gesture, like a medical facility dedicated to the victims, and agreed by all as a final symbolic settlement of their grievance against us and our inability to give them justice and closure.

I have a sneaking suspicion that many people here would leap on that idea with great enthusiasm.

Because they just can't come up with anything else that makes sense.