Ms Helen Flynn:

In terms of the Civil Service, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has begun some training with the Civil Service on human rights and has seconded some civil servants to lead that programme. Hopefully, this will have some interesting results. On the issue of a timeframe for the bill of rights, that is not how we look at the issue. Obviously, we do not want to double the wait from 15 to 30 years without a bill of rights. We fear that we will get to 20 years, two decades, and we will still not have a bill of rights. However, we do not feel it is helpful to think of that kind of timeframe.

The issue of consensus is an obstacle, but we feel it is up to the British Government to create a process. Ms Gildernew and Ms McKeown were present at the bill of rights forum where there was a process in place and people could discuss the issues.

The problem now is that the UK Government, we believe, has no interest in actually having a process in place. The process needs to come from the Government and we need the Irish Government to put pressure on the UK Government to put that process in place and to begin these conversations. The bill of rights is one thing but the actual process of getting there and discussing rights and what they mean in Northern Ireland is another very valuable process for us.