Ms Patricia McKeown:

I will comment on all three questions, if I may. As to what more we can do, we will not stop. A core policy of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, is our insistence on the completion of the Good Friday Agreement in terms of the commitments on equality, a bill of rights for Northern Ireland and the necessary process for dealing with the past. The absence of political will in these areas is destabilising our society.

We have been consistently told by the British Government that it is not under pressure from political parties on the island as regards a bill of rights for Northern Ireland. We do not know whether this is the case. If it is, it is incumbent on our political parties to exert pressure. If they have done so already, the British Government needs to be called to account for claiming otherwise. This point has been reiterated at our meetings with the Northern Ireland Office. It has also been raised in the British-Irish parliamentary process, through which people have been briefed by the Northern Ireland Office and the British Government. This situation must be addressed.

We held several meetings with the Secretary of State's predecessor, who was open in his distaste for a bill of rights. However, the UK commission has taken it out of the road. We have requested a meeting with the current Secretary of State, but we do not know whether she has a different opinion. In light of the UK commission's report, we hope that a different perspective will be taken.

Of course we know that we live in a society in which our criminal justice system, which has been under review for a long time, does not meet all international human rights standards. Better people than me will give evidence to the committee today - for example, human rights lawyers - which will put this matter in a clearer context. We give evidence on a regular, cyclical basis to UN organisations such as the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. We pay particular attention to the absence of some fundamental labour and trade union rights. We know what some of the civil and criminal justice issues are.

All of the above formed an extensive part of the year-long engagement between civil society and the political parties, assisted by expert lawyers from across Europe, in the bill of rights forum. Important work was done and a large measure of consensus was achieved, but we got caught between a rock and a hard place in the final part of the process. People became entrenched in party political voting on all of the recommendations. Behind those recommendations was extensive work. Everyone had a sharp learning curve and people from whatever walk of life made expert inputs. We need to return to having a large measure of consensus.

Everything stopped after the human rights commission passed its recommendations to the then Secretary of State some time ago. There has been no continuous dialogue. There was only continuous dialogue in the first place because, on foot of lobbying by groups such as the consortium and ourselves, the British Government pushed for the process. We need another push. For the past 15 years, we have argued that, had there been a continuous process of dialogue between political parties and the people, we would be in much better shape as regards a bill of rights, as there would be a greater and in-depth understanding in our society.

As congress knows, ordinary people have expressed their opinions through the work of the consortium. They want social and economic rights, and we believe these should be based on objective needs. The patterns of discrimination in our society must be challenged, but this is not occurring to any great extent. On the 15th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the picture and the map look much the same as they did prior to the agreement.