Professor Brandon Hamber:

I thank the members. I also had made a note about the migrant issue because we had not addressed it. Interestingly, in the report to which we have now alluded on several occasions there is a phrase which refers to Northern Ireland now becoming a society of minorities, not only meaning new groups coming into the society but also how people are increasingly identifying their own identities as Catholic and Protestant or Northern Irish. That starts to raise some interesting questions in terms of what was raised about the bill of rights and other sorts of issues. One starts to ask how one can protect and express one's sense of minority rather than how one prevents the problems of majoritarianism. That starts to change the mindset over a period and that is particularly interesting.

Mr. Sheridan made the point about the value for money issue raised by Senator Moran. My comment was going to be fairly similar, that I think that what has happened over the past while has been an increasing focus on outputs rather than outcomes. It is not that outputs are not important or that auditing is not important. If we are to assist these projects - I would stand by the view that much of this work is good - we need to be looking at the outcomes and move away from this obsession with whether one counted this or how much did one procure on issues. It is not that those issues are important but that we need such balance.

On the second point in that regard, as I was coming to the committee today I went through the Agreement again. I was astounded by the number of times it talks about the importance of community work and community-level engagement on victims' issues and other issues. Some of that commitment is there and society has committed to some of that, but for me this reaffirms it.

My final comment would focus on what can we do. Several members raised the issue of there being a historic context and that sectarianism predates the conflict. All of that is absolutely true, but then it raises the bar for us. If these are deep historical issues, that means we cannot be complacent. If they have such longevity, no matter how good the Agreement is, they are deep and rooted.

The issue of international comparison also arose and what is important in that regard. Coming from South Africa originally, I am always asked what is the difference between here and South Africa. There are many differences, but one of the key issues is that, obviously, what is in place in Northern Ireland is an agreement not a settlement. It is not settled what the issue is in terms of what the constitutional disposition will be at the end of the day, whatever that might be. It is an agreement and a direction of travel that has been put in place. That is important because it means one must underpin strongly the constitutional way that everybody has now affirmed that they will pursue their political aspirations in order to deal with how that will unfold itself in the future in terms of the constitutional issue. That, for me, reaffirms the importance of building the economy, having that robust structure and ensuring that young people have a sense of trust in those institutions over the long term because this is a long issue that will work itself out as an agreement before it reaches some form of settlement, whatever that might be. It means we cannot be complacent about issues of segregation in a society because if one does not deal with those, one potentially leaves the seeds for conflict.

There are a number of specific issues which we have not touched on here today but which are really important. The Agreement talks much about the issue of victims, and we have not really addressed that issue today. My concern with that issue at present is that increasingly it is being turned into a technocratic issue. The separation out of what are victims' issues from what are victims' needs is happening at a policy level and more services are being put in place. There is the medicalisation of victims' needs and what is not being addressed or the much deeper questions which destabilise the process are matters around issues of justice or people's feelings of the need to deal with the past. For me, there is a really big outstanding issue. This committee or any other committee could start to help move that debate forward and say, "Let us engage in this in a serious way." This is not only about offering medical services. This is about who did what to whom and big damaging difficult questions about justice. At the same time, I feel very confident. If people were able to negotiate the Agreement, why can they not sit down and start to talk about some of these other issues if this is what the future needs?

In terms of what needs to be done, what would be valuable is a systematic analysis of the Agreement, not in a technocratic way but in asking what if things are said there that have not been followed through - whether these are victims' issues, the civic forum, the question of reconciliation and the big word "integration" that comes through. Let us systematically look at those issues.

What strikes me about 21% of people not being born when the Agreement was signed is that it makes one think that perhaps there is a need for some re-education about the spirit of the Agreement. I do not know whether colleagues shared the frustration during the flag protest, but there were times when people were saying things where I wanted to say: "You do know that your citizenship is guaranteed under this Agreement. This cannot change." Symbolically, it might feel damaging and hurtful if one's symbols are treated in a certain way, but certain matters are absolutely guaranteed in this Agreement. Maybe that points to the need for this re-education about what this Agreement is about and links to Mr. Durkan's point about the Bill of Rights as a potential vehicle to do this.

We have talked about the civic forum. The committee and various other political groups have the potential to reaffirm the commitments made within the Agreement. If we were talking about a 15 year marriage, people might say there was a need to reaffirm its purpose. The key aspects of the Agreement include integration and there is a need for policies on its aims which need to be reaffirmed. We must ask what our direction of travel is and where we ultimately want to be. As Dr. Jarman said, it is difficult to know, but in the absence of reaffirmation, we will not go anywhere fast. This is linked with the issue of leadership. At community level there is a deep suspicion that the political system is built on segregation and that there is no desire among politicians to change this. The view has taken root in many sectors, but I agree with Mr. Sheridan that matters are more complicated than this. If there was a clear sense of the direction of travel, as well as reaffirmation of the need for integration and a new society, it would start to dispel any suspicion.

There may be a need for different brokers to help to broach the difficult discussion required to deal with the past. Coming from South Africa, I note that this process will only work if local people own it. There may be a need for brokerage, but it must grasp the spirit within the Agreement.