Ms Michelle Gildernew, MP:

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. I welcome the witnesses. It is good to see them. They hit the nail on the head when they said they were preaching to the converted. There is widespread support for the bill of rights here. I refer to the point Ms McKeown made about challenging the British Government and applying pressure. It would be worth challenging it further because it sounds like pressure from ourselves and the SDLP does not count unless pressure is applied by the DUP and the UUP. That is the only pressure it will listen to. We have raised this consistently with the British Government and people in the British Labour Party.

The very people who are hypocritically on our television screens talking about the erosion of rights - we have heard the flag protest was not necessarily about the flag but about the erosion of rights - are consistently denying us a bill of rights and are trying to scupper it. I would very robustly challenge the British Government to say from where the pressure is coming, if there is pressure, and also from where it is not coming.

I did not hear about the child in Belfast with rickets but in the dim and distant past, after the Second World War, vitamins A and D were put into margarine to try to avoid rickets. To think we have a disease like rickets in our population is incredible. We have been making those points about health inequalities, early intervention, supporting families, Home Start and Sure Start and trying to give parents the support they need to make the right decisions for their children.

Poverty was spoken about here. The austerity measures in the South seem to be affecting the working class communities, which are the most vulnerable in our society, and not the people who have wealth and who can share it. When one sees the impact welfare reform will have on the most vulnerable in our communities, it seems like the policies of both Governments on the island are more detrimental to people in working class communities who have most to gain from a bill of rights.

In regard to the list of human rights, I attended an event last week with the parents of children with severe disabilities who are in a special school. They are in a very safe environment for 15 years but when they turn 19 year of age, they are turned out of it. There is no right to equal opportunity in all social and economic activities, regardless of class, creed, disability, gender or ethnicity. Those people are left bereft after their child leaves formal education at 19 years of age with no chance of social and economic activity on any kind of rights basis. It comes up in every walk of life in which we are involved. Tomorrow I will speak at an event in County Fermanagh, where Invest NI is getting a hammering about how effective it has been in that county. The Minister in charge is from that county but we see the economic rights of people, urban and rural, are being dissipated and at times one feels there is very little one can do about it.

I do not have a specific question but would say the witnesses should challenge the British and Ireland Governments to see from where the pressure is coming. The point was made that there was not consensus around everything in the Good Friday Agreement. This is something all people in the North need, whether they think so or not. We will continue to support the witnesses in their work. We should not leave the British Government or the Irish Government off the hook. Mr. Maskey seconded the suggestion that this committee write to the Taoiseach on this issue, and I concur with that.