Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): I welcome from Community Dialogue Ms Dympna McGlade, Peace Summit Partnership lead, and Ms Anne Carr and Dr Lyn Moffett, board members. I invite you to make an opening statement of up to 10 minutes, and we will then have questions from members.

Dr Lyn Moffett (Community Dialogue): We will share the opening statement, if that is all right.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Yes.

Dr Moffett: I will kick off. Although we represent different organisations, we have come together as part of Community Dialogue and the Peace Summit Partnership. We are grateful for the opportunity to speak to you today about something that is very important to us and that we passionately believe in.

We want to begin with one simple truth: Northern Ireland has changed since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement; the institutions have not. The institutions were essential in ending the violence that we were experiencing at that time, but they were designed for a society divided into two fixed identities. Today, Northern Ireland is more diverse, more mixed and less defined by old political labels, yet our political system still forces those labels on people. People do not want to be described as Protestant/unionist/loyalist (PUL) or Catholic/nationalist/republican (CNR), and that mismatch is now driving instability. We call that the "segregation paradox". Here is the core problem: according to the Northern Ireland life and times survey, 52% of people now identify as neither unionist nor nationalist, but MLAs must still designate as unionist, nationalist or other. The majority of the public no longer fit the system that is designed to represent them. The consequences of that are a system that no longer protects people. We see the impact clearly in rising hate crime. There were 1,807 race-related incidents and 1,188 race hate crimes in 2024-25. Race hate crime is now significantly higher than sectarian hate crime. Society has moved on, but our institutions have not kept pace.

Another factor that we see clearly is instability in the Government: Stormont has been collapsed or suspended for around 40% of the time since 1998. Major decisions on health, education and infrastructure have repeatedly been delayed. The Northern Ireland Fiscal Council warns of severe planning risk for public services, and policies and strategies have no implementation plans or resources attached. That is not just a design flaw; it is the source of our instability.

For working-class communities, very little has changed. That is part of the story that is too often ignored. The top 20 most deprived areas in 1998 are still the most deprived areas today. The communities most affected by the conflict are still living with its consequences every day. In many segregated working-class areas, deprivation remains deeply entrenched. Mental health problems are significantly higher. Suicide rates are among the highest in these islands. Educational attainment is consistently lower. Drug and alcohol dependency is widespread, and paramilitary coercion and criminality continue to shape daily life. Those communities have lived through segregation, cultural disputes, paramilitary control, underinvestment and political instability. For them, the legacy of the conflict is not history; it is their present reality, and the political system designed in 1998 has not adapted to address those deep, ongoing harms.

This is not an abstract constitutional debate. We have a system that is failing to protect the people who need it most. I will now pass over to Dympna.

Ms Dympna McGlade (Community Dialogue): We are labouring the point of peace and reconciliation because, in 2028, we will come to a milestone, if you like, when we mark 60 years since the Troubles were deemed to have begun and 30 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. That means that we will be 30 years into the peace process, after which we will be longer in the peace process than we were in the conflict. We are labouring the point about peace and reconciliation because we feel that the institutions have not addressed those issues. The institutions have been looking inwardly at structures but not outwardly to peace and reconciliation, which is part of the Good Friday Agreement. They have been looking at it, but they have not been doing so well enough, because, as Lyn pointed out, we still have a lot of outstanding issues.

The reality for people on the ground is that they are still suffering segregation. You have 100 peace walls still standing. According to Together: Building a United Community (T:BUC) strategy, they were supposed to be down by 2023. Some 90% of our social housing is segregated, and it is becoming segregated for not just the two main communities but our minority ethnic communities. We do not want to go into 2028 with the scenario where you are not welcome if you are a Catholic or a Protestant or if you have a different skin colour or are from a different country. The divisions of the flags and emblems and bonfires continue to reinforce the separation. The Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition (FICT) made 80-odd recommendations to address cultural issues, but most of them remain unimplemented.

Then, we have paramilitarism. As we move towards 2028, the paramilitaries are still recruiting. Many of the original leaders are now dead and are being replaced by younger people, which makes no sense whatsoever in our current scenario. They are shaping the lives of the people in the areas that Lyn referred to — the hardest-hit working-class communities — and keeping them in poverty. Within that there is an equality and human rights issue: people are being kept in poverty, and not only have they suffered the impact of the conflict but they are suffering the ongoing impact of paramilitarism that is brutalising them. People in those areas are at high risk of suicide and suffer the same social and economic disadvantage as they did not just 30 years ago but 60 years ago. During that time, the same areas have been swapping places in the list of the top 10 most deprived areas.

We have had an estimate of £750 million in the Programme for Government, so the Government have stated that that is the cost of paramilitarism. We are looking at reform and how to save money: £750 million is staring us in the face.

The people whom we spoke to in the peace summit consultations were adamant. They talked, round and round, about outstanding legacy issues, but they were adamant that you can work as hard as you like on the ground for peace and reconciliation, but, if the leadership, proper programmes and cross-departmental strategies are not in place and working effectively, you are banging your head off a brick wall. There was frustration there. However, they welcomed the fact that we were putting our submission to the Committee and the idea that there would be reform of the institutions. In particular, we hope that the reform will address peace and reconciliation and put it at the top of the agenda, because not doing so is affecting our economy and people's lives, and, after 60 years, including the 30 years that I have spoken about, that need to change.

We feel that 2028 is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make change, and we would like to think that the institutions would be long way down the road of reform by then.

We are left with two options. Do we continue to manage division and separation and not take on board our changed society — we are a region of minorities now — or do we build a genuinely shared, inclusive, safe and vibrant society? The people whom we consulted told us that the system could work better. We believe that too. Anne will talk about how we feel change might help that.

Ms Anne Carr (Community Dialogue): Hello, everyone. I will start with something that I read this morning:

Who said that? Lyra McKee. Her words are ringing at the moment because it is the anniversary of her death. I was here for the first day of the Assembly. I had been working for 12 years before that on trying to end the violence and build new communities. I am delighted to be here and to feel what is happening now, because it is so important that we all work together to build something new.

When we talk about the solution to everything here, it is about modernising power-sharing for a shared future. We all can have a vision of what a shared future looks like, but we need a shared vision of what that future looks like. That comes from work that I did with many of the Members of the first Assembly when we went across to Stanford University and had visiting professors from all over the world talking about the importance of a vision. That is what is absent.

This morning, when I told my taxi driver that I was coming to this Committee, he asked, "Will you just tell them all to wise up?". [Laughter.]

The feeling is that things need to change. We are saying that they can change and do so for the better. It is normal to change after 28 years.

We are not talking about ending power-sharing. We are talking about modernising it so that it works for today's society. Without reform, what will continue? Instability is always a possibility — it will continue; inequality will deepen; division will harden; sectarianism, which is still here, will continue; and racism will definitely rise. For us, there were some central principles to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. It was not just about the establishment of the Assembly, Executive and political structures; it was very much about all of the architecture that would support them.

Central to that, for me, are the Civic Forum, which was there — that needed to happen then, and it needs to happen even more today — and a bill of rights. They are part of the architecture of support. If we are serious about strengthening the stability and legitimacy of our institutions, which we are, we must widen the circle of participation. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement recognised that. That is why we promised a Civic Forum, and, whilst the idea of a bill of rights was not as clear, it certainly became clear in the 'New Decade/New Approach' (NDNA) document. The fact that an Ad Hoc Committee was set up shows that we are serious now about having a bill of rights. A lot of work has been done, but we have not moved towards anything that people out there see as happening, because it has not happened. The Civic Forum and a bill of rights were not optional extras; they were designed as core supports for a democratic culture based on equality, participation and mutual respect. Those values all live in the very important declaration that starts off the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Every person who was involved in the creation of the agreement knew that that was important. The agreement was commended to us all and we voted on it, so those values are really important.

It is more than a quarter of a century on, and the absence of those mechanisms is now a structural weakness. We have political institutions that carry the full weight of public expectation. It is hard. I do not know how you do it — I really do not — because it needs to be divided amongst us. We all need to be part of it. Without the civic infrastructure that the agreement envisaged to support the institutions, how is it all possible? The result of not having that infrastructure is a system that is often brittle, dependent on party negotiations and vulnerable to mistrust. Citizens' assemblies and a restored Civic Forum offer a practical, evidence-based way to address the gap. We know from 'New Decade, New Approach' that there is the possibility of trying out citizens' assemblies. We know that there are very successful processes around the world. I was looking at Belgium, which has a joint civic forum/citizens' assembly process that works really well. It is all about the informal informing the formal and the formal learning from the informal. That was in Duncan Morrow's Future Ways project many years ago: it stressed how important the formal structures are in making decisions and making law and questioned how those structures can do that well and create good policy without having the structures there to get the information that they need — the lived experience — to make it all work well. Having been involved in dialogue all my life, I know that it works. I know that understanding other people's position helps to inform our position, and it is the only way forward.

A bill of rights would definitely help to complement everything that we are doing, in that it would provide the stable rights framework that the agreement promised — a framework that gives people confidence that their rights are protected, regardless of political change. It would anchor the values of equality, mutual respect and human dignity that the declaration of support sets out as the foundation of our institutions in a context where mistrust and instability have repeatedly disrupted governance. A bill of rights would provide clarity, reassurance and a shared baseline for decision-making.

The question is not whether those mechanisms are desirable — the evidence shows us that they are effective, publicly supported and aligned with the commitments in our Belfast/Good Friday Agreement — but whether our institutions can continue to function effectively without them. If we want a more stable, inclusive and resilient political system, structured civic engagement and a rights-based foundation must be part of the architecture of that.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recognises civic engagement and rights protections as best international practice, and we need to listen to it. We also need to give Stormont more control over finance. Right now, most funding decisions, as we know, depend on Westminster, and we have seen that very recently. We propose greater local control over raising and spending money. That would enable the investment that is so overdue in affordable housing, anti-poverty work and peacebuilding.

We mentioned that we have to tackle paramilitarism properly. It is important that independent monitoring be there as well. If we had annual progress reports, with a full review every five years, it would certainly help, because reflection is always important, and there are always ways to do things better. The role of the departmental oversight Committees also needs to be strengthened.

Reform must be implemented, not just promised. We do a lot of work on the implementation of reform, but it does not seem to reach fruition. Reform would deliver stable, functioning government, better public services, less division and violence, a more inclusive society and a stronger, more resilient peace — a positive peace. I travel a lot and live between Northern Ireland and Scotland. When I use taxis and public transport, people constantly tell me that that is what they want. Our dialogue processes are all about how we can make things better. People do not know the importance of the institutions or the importance of the agreement, and young people in particular want to see them work.

Segregation is not just part of our past; it is still shaping our present. Reform is how we finish the job of moving to that positive peace, rebuilding trust and creating institutions that work for everyone. We feel that the bill of rights, inclusive institutions and shared decision-making are essential to that promised future.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Thanks very much for that. There is some interesting stuff in there. I will start with the issue of taxi drivers. [Laughter.]

Ms Carr: It is a good way to start. [Laughter.]

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): I have had a few discussions with taxi drivers, and my advice to them is either to switch their radios off at 9.00 am or switch to another station, because it seems to be that that is where they get most of their information from.

I agree wholeheartedly with you about the bill of rights, tax-raising powers and shared decision-making. I agree 100%. If I had a magic wand, there would be a bill of rights here by this afternoon.

Sorry, we have to stop. We no longer have a quorum.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): On the issue of a bill of rights and tax-raising powers, I would have them here this afternoon, but other parties are opposed to those. Other parties are opposed to having a bill of rights and have, effectively, put the dead hand on it for many, many years. Even simple matters of shared decision-making are difficult. Just before Easter, we had the situation in which summer schools for children in special schools were being cancelled. It transpired that neither the Education Minister nor the Health Minister had lifted the phone to the each other to resolve what was quite a simple issue to resolve. Five minutes on the phone would have done that, and neither of them seemed to be prepared to do it.

I want a bill of rights. I know that Carál does. I am sure that Matthew and Michelle also want it —

Ms Ní Chuilín: We all voted for it.

Mrs Guy: Yes.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): — but there are other parties opposed to it, so how do we get over that?

Ms Carr: Is that not about structural reform and changing the way —?

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Explain to me how structural reform would change that situation?

Ms Carr: If everybody worked through a human-rights lens, would that help? No?

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): There are people in the Assembly who are hostile to even the mention of human rights.

Ms Carr: How can they be? I go back to the declaration of support all the time. People come into the Assembly for the first time and sign on a dotted line, as I did in the council chamber. This is important because it is what I remember: I was told on that first day of signing that declaration in the council chamber — Down District Council as it was then — that, "Although you might be representing a political viewpoint or party, today you are representing every citizen".

As soon as you walk into the Chamber, you are representing every citizen of this society; therefore, you leave party politics at the door. How do we get to that place?

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Those are the questions. If we look at the bigger picture — politics on a global scale — we see that the most powerful man in the world has been found guilty in a court of sexual assault, among other things. We hear his bombast and his crudeness, and that emboldens other people in their day-to-day politics throughout the world. Those are some of the issues that we have to deal with. Of course, you know that there are people in the Assembly who are cheerleaders for Donald Trump and cheerleaders for genocide in Gaza.

Anyway, I do not want to get on my soapbox. I will bring in Matthew.

Mr O'Toole: Thank you, Deputy Chair. Thank you all. That was excellent evidence. It is important to get the broader ethical and human rights perspective, because we can drown in the detail of reform, petitions of concern and precise institutional questions. I will try to link the two up.

You talked compellingly about backsliding on human rights, the failure to agree a bill of rights, continued division, and the intersection with unacceptably high levels of poverty in the districts that were in the front line of the conflict. That is a moral burden that weighs on us.

Dympna, you also said that you see institutional reform making this place work better. That may mean a range of things, but the upshot is that it will deliver more cohesive and coherent government that, ideally, is less divided and which still has the idea of common purpose behind it. Are there specific reforms that would deliver more cohesive government and therefore overcome some of the challenges that you talked about?

I would also like to hear what Anne and Lyn have to say in response.

Ms McGlade: There are different levels of reform. There is reform of the institutions overall. We need to look at petitions of concern, and we need to look at fiscal powers. We also need to look at the Committees that hold Departments to account: what their purpose is and whether they should have more powers. We have presented many times before the Committees, and they do not seem to be able to change things or make much difference through scrutiny.

Anne talked about the bill of rights, and Pat talked about the difference in political opinions. There needs to be an external body, such as the Human Rights Commission, the Equality Commission or whoever — one of the commissions — to look at the problems and have independent oversight of how equality and human rights are implemented.

Mr O'Toole: Do you mean oversight of things such as the Equality Commission or oversight of other public bodies?

Ms McGlade: The institutions, not just the Civil Service, should be held to account for their behaviour, codes of conduct and how they represent people. They are voted in to represent the whole community. We need to move from siloed working to looking at, as Anne said, the region of minorities. We are much bigger than the two main communities. I do not think that the institutions will be able to do that, because they have not, so far. Some external oversight is needed, but it is also important, as Anne said, to include the community and civic society in more formal roles. You have a lot of groups, such as the Youth Assembly, but there is no ongoing statutory role.

For example, I was at a consultation meeting yesterday on the racial equality strategy. There is such hierarchy in the inclusion of the advisory groups. There is the senior group and the implementation group — all Civil Service — and the civic society groups feed into them. Those implementing the strategy can take or leave what those groups feed in. There needs to be a variety of other actors. I do not think that, politically, there will be ever be agreement — that was highlighted by Pat — by choice, so there needs to be independent oversight by commissions or by whomever the most appropriate people are. There needs to be a variety players. It is also important that there be proper civic society engagement so that it is listened to and acted on in the recommendations.

Mr O'Toole: Many people will say, "There's not going to be political agreement". Pat talked about particular parties having particular views. There is definitely something to that. However, do you think that, in that context, they will find the urgency to achieve some level of agreement to improve the way in which this place works? There is a role for the two Governments, but do you think that they should step in to convene talks and say, "We actually now need to focus on specific changes"? You said that it is unlikely to come from —.

Ms McGlade: There is a North/South role and an east-west role.

Ms Carr: It is their guarantor role.

Dr Moffett: The North/South institutions and the east-west institutions were also a part of the agreement. They really are not being used as well as they could be.

You might think that removing designations is a risky way to go, but, if you were to take some of the identity politics out of the Assembly, Members might be prepared to look at the bread-and-butter issues and vote on things in a way that makes their constituents' lives better.

Ms Carr: It is also about the understanding of the people out there. My daughter and son-in-law are both teachers, and I was talking to them last night about this. Declan said to me, "But, Anne, some of my pupils don't even know who the Prime Minister is". The reality is that young people are really removed from this place. No matter what you have, their lives are in a different place. You also have all the social media going on. It is a process of engagement that involves education.

You mentioned human rights. Even the term "human rights" is abused. It is a bit like the term "dialogue". When I first started to do dialogue and went into communities that had more of a unionist constituency, I could not talk about "dialogue" because that was seen as belonging to Sinn Féin; I had to talk about "conversations". Language is important. How do we engage those people who have simply said, "It's nothing to do with me", when it is everything to do with them? It is about how we engage with our communities.
The Civic Forum was not put into the agreement as an afterthought; it was seen as one of the structures that would help this place to function well, along with a bill of rights and the declaration of support. The flax flower should be our symbol. Every stem of the flax flower should be one of the values in the declaration of support. Every one of our young people should know what is in that declaration of support. The last few words are:

That means us and the people out there. We own it. We own the vote that we had then. I was telling somebody this morning that I went up to Stormont House, picked up 220 copies of the agreement and took them to all the communities with which I was working to help them to understand it, particularly the Shankill Road community and the Protestant communities, who had not even read it because they said, "That's nothing to do with us". People then saw that it was a compromise and said, "I see me in this. I see my children in this. I see my future". How do we fill that gap if people do not understand what this place does, how the institutions work, how they are part of the bigger picture, and how human rights work? We decided that we would work through those things.

Ms McGlade: I looked at other jurisdictions to see how they worked collectively. I have not thought this through to its logical conclusion, but there was something about the Programme for Government's being agreed in advance of ministerial appointments. Scotland has a national performance framework, which means that, when Ministers are put in place, they are all signed up to the same framework; they are not negotiating 11 different Governments. Is that something that we should explore? The Irish Government's Programme for Government is negotiated in advance of the appointments. That could be another way of signing up to represent the whole of society rather than vested interests.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Sorry for nipping to the loo. I agree with most of what you are saying. However, I just think that there is a lack of detail on what reforms would look like. Can you feed that into the Committee? Irish-language activists had to go to court to on the issue of an Irish language Act, even though it was in the Good Friday Agreement, and anti-poverty campaigners have had to go to court. Pat used the example of summer schemes for children with special educational needs. We are all governed by section 75, yet it is broken every day of the week. In that broad sense, there is no pushback at all.

I sat on the Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights, and it was very frustrating because, right up until the Assembly debate, the people who came to the Committee were told that a bill of rights would be supported. At the end, the unionist parties dashed everybody's hopes. It is not about what you say or I say; those opposed to human rights and equality need to explain that.

You talked about class. People here do not want to talk about class, but, as someone who grew up in and lived in north Belfast, right on the interfaces, I get annoyed when I hear people talking about removing interfaces without talking to the community. That happens. I agree that they need to go, but they cannot go unless people are part of that conversation. By and large, they are the last people to be consulted, and we do not want that to happen with the reform of this place.

It is worth repeating that, unlike with any other job, we go out and talk to the public to get elected. Everybody goes out with their wish lists and their asks, but I never hear reform mentioned. I do hear about the institutions being up and down, the opposition to rights and the denial of equality. People are very quick to tell you what they do not want, more than articulating what they do want. For us, citizens' assemblies are certainly something. We are all open to reform, by the way. That is, those of us who are here now: those who are not here can speak for themselves.

Dympna, you mentioned the petition of concern. The petition of concern was dealt with. It had to be dealt with through —.

Ms Carr: New Decade, New Approach. It is dealt with, is it not? It is gone.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Yes. It had to be dealt with because it had been completely abused. You mentioned revenue raising, more control over finance and designations. To put it on the record, I do not like the term "paramilitaries". They are all gangsters; they are armed groups. Calling them "paramilitaries" gives them a cover. If you cannot answer me on this now, feed it in afterwards. What other reforms, what practical steps to reform the mechanisms that this place was established on, do you feel could be made to make this place work and to end vetoes? That is not to ignore someone's mandate, but the use of vetoes to suppress equality and human rights needs to stop. What would you do differently?

Ms Carr: Can I not ask something again about this place when it was established? When people become an MLA, how are they held accountable to the values on which this place and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement were built? Those values include human rights and equality.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Anne, you have a party that does not agree. The biggest unionist party does not agree.

Ms Carr: Listen, Carál —.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): It did not sign up to the Good Friday Agreement.

Ms Carr: New Decade, New Approach —.

Ms Ní Chuilín: It did not agree to that either.

Ms Carr: That agreement says that it did. I picked that out because I did some workshops on New Decade, New Approach in Ballymena. It says that the seven — or whatever number — parties all now support the declaration of support. I thought that that was a lever. I thought that that was it and that would begin the change and the reform.

I go back to Scotland. Again, it is about an MLA knowing what they are signing up to when they become an MLA. Something about that has to shift so that they cannot get away with that sort of stuff afterwards, but I do not know how you do it.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Sorry, Anne, I am going to stop you there. We have had MLAs who have signed up to non-violence but stood with UDA and UVF gangsters at interfaces. Sorry, I am just cutting the crap out of that argument.

Ms Carr: But how do we get away from that?

Ms Ní Chuilín: I know, but those same people use coercive control and are involved with prostitution, drugs and all the rest of it, although I do not want to get into all that. I accept and agree with what you are saying —

Ms Carr: I know that you do.

Ms Ní Chuilín: — but the reality is that —

Ms Carr: You cannot do it. They get away with it.

Ms Ní Chuilín: — we need to look towards a coalition of the willing, with progressives and progressive parties, to make sure that old vetoes of the past cannot be used to suppress growth, inclusion and rights. I have said my piece. That is me.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): I do not want to cut you off, Carál, but I want to bring Michelle in. Matthew has to leave in about 10 minutes, and that will be the end of the Committee meeting because we will not have enough members. Sorry about that, Carál.

Ms Ní Chuilín: No, you are grand.

Mrs Guy: Thank you. Apologies that I missed most of the evidence. I read your written submission last night. I feel as though we are at the stage of the inquiry where we can see that, ultimately, progress will not come from us here. We are talking about and hearing evidence. I am persuaded by everything that you said, which will come as no surprise to you. I fully support reform, and my party has some proposals. I am glad to hear that there is an open dialogue with parties, which are looking to see what they can support. That is really helpful when it comes to the inquiry, and it is really helpful to have evidence to shape those views.

Anne, when the cameras were off, you talked a lot about the role that you played in ending the conflict. For me, as a starting point for analysis, I always push back on that, because I do not think that we have ended the conflict; I think that we institutionalised it.

Ms Carr: Probably.

Mrs Guy: That is the core, underlying problem in all the dysfunction in this place. We set up a Government and institutions to balance two opposing sides that will never agree. The reluctance to overcome the dysfunction that exists in the particulars of how the institutions function all stems back to the fact that people are still playing out the conflict through politics, and the institutions facilitate that. I feel that I opted out of that. I do not even like where I sit in the Chamber. I am between unionism and nationalism, but that is not where I am politically. I opt out of the idea that that is how our politics ought to work or is the only way that it can work. We are proving that it does not work.

Ultimately, for me, it is about getting not to the detail of how to reform — I am up for reform, and I have ideas about what it might look like — but to the role of the Irish Government and British Government, which Matthew touched on. Correct me if I am wrong, but it feels as if that issue is pivotal. We have also talked about citizens' assemblies, and the Committee has discussed that. If politicians are not going to move forward and people are going to use the levers of the institutions and the vetoes so that we never overcome those things, is there a role for the Governments to establish the forums to get the evidence and get the dialogue, which we can choose to listen, happening? It feels as if that will not come from this place.

Ms McGlade: You have two existing organisations — the Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, and the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee — that have done quite a bit on that. That is a start.

Ms Carr: I can tell you that I challenged the two Governments in the earliest days. Where were they when we could not get the Executive up and running in those first years? I was out campaigning on the streets. We were here, outside, campaigning, and certain people were holding them back. I then went to the two Governments, asking where they were, because they had a role to play. Do you know what I was told by, I think, an Irish Government representative at the time? I went with a representative of the Belfast Interface Project (BIP). I was told, "We wanted to give them a chance to bed in, and then we will step in". However, they are not stepping in at all, despite being guarantors when it comes to this place working, because we did not set up a proper implementation committee.

Please look up the research of Stephen Stedman of Stanford University on the implementation peace agreements around the world. He spoke in Northern Ireland. His research gives the five most important things that need to happen following the establishment of a peace agreement: we cannot tick off any of them.

Ms McGlade: There is a huge opportunity. We have been around a long time, and I can say that you always have to think about where there is a glimmer of hope to get in. It keeps you going; otherwise, you would just give up.

In terms of the region of minorities, coming up to the anniversaries in 2028, there is an opportunity for the Assembly and Executive to reflect and to ask, "Who do we represent now, and how do we represent them?". That is a way of moving away from the two main communities being siloed. That is a good opportunity to make the change — trying to reform the institutions. They should be reformed to suit society. The same issues of growing racism and emerging right-wing, or far-right, groups are faced North/South and east-west, but particularly North/South.

Ms Carr: East-west as well.

Ms McGlade: That presents an opportunity, I hope, to at least get common ground between the parties. One lives in hope. Rather than rehearsing the same arguments about whether or not it works, we should be asking, "Where are we now? What do we look like?". It is entirely different. Use that as the leverage to say that we need change and that we need to represent our society as it is now. That has to mean change. Even the designations have to change. You cannot have designations only for the two main communities when there is a whole raft of different people out there.

Mrs Guy: I hear what you are saying. I think that the Government still look at this place as if it were 1998.

Ms McGlade: Yes.

Mrs Guy: I do not think that they recognise any change at all. People throw out words such as "consensus", but it is not intended to form consensus. It is a veto. It is saying, "We're not doing this". And we can —.

Ms McGlade: If it is done in a constructive way, it is, on the one hand, an opportunity to make this society work and to create a good economy, as well as say that we have to make a change. Otherwise, if you do not reform, racism will grow, society will falter and the institutions will fall. You balance the very positive with the reality of the negatives. That is the opportunity, I think. Bringing those groups in as part of civic forums brings a whole new dynamic to the conversation.

Ms Carr: Absolutely.

Ms McGlade: That does not apply to only minority ethnic communities. Throughout the conflict, LGBTQI+ people did not have much say. People with disabilities, people in poverty, women and young people did not have a say, and they have not had much say during the peace process, because there has been a whole change. There is now an opportunity to say: "Right. Restart. Change society".

Mrs Guy: The idea of division now needs to be looked at as being broader than just two communities.

Ms Carr: Yes, broader. That is what we are saying.

Mrs Guy: Carál picked up on those other things, such as poverty.

Ms Carr: Did I not clap my hands when I saw on the news, a few months ago, the First Minister and the deputy First Minister say that the Civic Forum is coming? Where is it? It is a bill of rights — two years of work. We were talking to Monica McWilliams downstairs before coming to the Committee. She was talking about the bill of rights. The Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights, established under the New Decade, New Approach agreement, worked, with people coming in from everywhere, but it got to a certain stage, and then somebody pulled the plug. That somebody we know. That is crazy.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): One issue that I have is the question of who that somebody is. For example, we have had a lot of academics giving evidence to the Committee as part of this review. One of them said that, as part of the reform, tax-raising powers need to be devolved. I said that the opposition to that is from the DUP and that Sinn Féin would support that. I said, "Why don't you say that it is the DUP, rather than saying, 'This is a reform'?". He said, "Oh, that would be political".

Ms Carr: All politics is political.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): If the people who want reform will not call out who is blocking reform, we will not get to —.

Ms McGlade: What is the point of this Committee if it —?

Ms Carr: That is it. You are doing a lot of work.

Ms McGlade: Everybody must have signed up to this Committee. Did all parties sign up to this reform Committee?

Ms Carr: No.

Ms Ní Chuilín: No.

Ms McGlade: No? You are not giving us much hope. Throw us a line. [Laughter.]

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): All parties are represented on the Committee, but some parties are opposed to reform.

I am sorry, but Matthew has to leave.

Mr O'Toole: On that note, I am so sorry.

Ms Carr: I am sorry, Matthew. I have never met you before, but it has been lovely to see you.

Mr O'Toole: Please continue the conversation. Apologies, as I will make the Committee inquorate, but I do have to go. Speaking of reform, I have to speak in an Opposition debate.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): I will ask the officials to end the live session.

Ms Carr: That is the end of it. Thank you.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Thank you.