Mr. Peter Sheridan:

I thank the Chairman and members for givng me the opportunity to speak to them. This is a timely discussion and although we did not confer before the meeting, the committee will find similarities in all of the issues raised in the three contributions. Given that yesterday was the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and although much work remains to be done, we should remind ourselves that hundreds of citizens are alive or uninjured today because of the Agreement. In the heat of a debate on flags or parades we tend to think nothing has changed, but that is not true. However, people still believe that, despite the Agreement, physical force is a way forward and we must deal with that issue.

I have distributed to the committee a document that I use for my organisation to demonstrate how we are in transition. I was in New York around St. Patrick's Day and asked a number of questions. People were seeking information on the flags issue and there was the sense that nothing had changed in Northern Ireland. I indicated that if there was to be a similar conflict in New York alone, 30,000 people would lose their lives, while up to 1 million would be injured. One could imagine the trauma that would be experienced in New York, relative to the number of people who lost their lives on 9/11. We should not be surprised that we have not reached the very end of the process. As my colleagues have noted, there are many relationship issues to be dealt with.

I have put the peace process in four phases - peacekeeping, peace-making, peace-building and peace-sharing. I do not mean it in terms of United Nations peacekeeping, but when the conflict commenced in the late 1960s, many tried to stop the violence, including various individuals, the churches and so on. However, they were unsuccessful. Although there was conflict for the next 35 years, politics was still a major component. In the early 1970s there were attempts made through the Sunningdale Agreement, while in the 1980s we had the Anglo-Irish Agreement. In the 1990s we had the Good Friday Agreement and for the first time across the island we can shake hands and say we have made peace. I have listed all of the components in that peace-making phase which were about politics. The introduction of human rights and equality legislation assisted in that respect.

I am nervous about saying this in front of Mr. Mark Durkan, M P., but all we got at the end was agreement on a system of government and the institutions of government. That is critical in a democracy and although I know people hate talking about what will happen in 30 years, the next phase will involve peace-building. How will we underpin a political agreement in normalising relationships between communities in Northern Ireland, across the island of Ireland and east-west? The Queen's visit to Dublin was part of that normalising relationship, with Mr. Martin McGuinness and the Queen shaking hands. The process will be at its most difficult at the grassroots. I have noted all of the outstanding issues in the peace-building phase and they have been added to by the other delegates. Signature weaknesses include segregation in housing and education, sectarianism and dealing with the past. We are in danger of settling for communal division or separatism in Northern Ireland, which may not seem unreasonable, as for 30 years people saw their neighbour as an enemy. We now have to live together as citizens, which will take time.

If we do not deal with the issues of sectarianism, segregation and so on, it will be a recruiting ground for those who see young people picking up the mantle of violent extremism. It is not good enough to leave it to the Garda or the PSNI. All the police forces on the island will be able to do is to contain the situation. If we leave these issues outstanding, it will create such ground, particularly in an economic climate in which disadvantaged communities did not receive a peace dividend. We all hoped when the Good Friday Agreement was signed and 6,000 jobs would be created in Derry, Belfast or wherever else, that young people would have a sense of hope and opportunity, but, unfortunately, the opposite happened and people started to lose jobs. That remains one of the difficulties for us.

Institution building is still critically important. The review of public administration in the North and the South is critical and, as Dr. Jarmon said, the issues of the civic forum, the single equality Act and the Bill of Rights remain outstanding. They will be difficult for the various political parties, but their resolution is the next stage in building a genuinely shared society. We have to reach a stage in a shared society where people in Northern Ireland, whatever their background, will see it as home. Too often, from a political point of view, we champion our own rights, the rights of one's own community. Good human rights involve knowing how to protect the rights of the other community. In terms of political leadership, we need people to demonstrate how they will protect the rights of the other community.

There is a responsibility on Britain and Ireland to give something back in other conflict zones. It is not that one can map the conflict resolution process around the world, but there was a lot of learning to be done here. What was the role of the two states, good and bad? What was the role of the churches, good and bad, during the conflict? What was the role of the community and voluntary sector? We do some of this sharing with organisations and our colleagues in Glencree who engage in international outreach activities. There is a responsibility, as well as an opportunity in terms of how we help in other conflict zones around the world. In 1962, if one was black and got on a bus in the United States, one was sent to the back of the bus or had to give up one's seat. Fifty years later there is a black president. They have not dealt with all of the issues of race and prejudice, but they have moved considerably. The question for us is: who will be our black president in the next 30 or 50 years?