Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank both witnesses for their presentations. The issues they raise are difficult and they involve significant effort and dialogue to confront the reasons there was so many difficulties in the past. Religious orders and groupings have never taken responsibility for their influence on certain people during conflict. Bono was interviewed on television by Gay Byrne earlier this week and he spoke about the fragmentation of a church. I do not agree with much of what he says but I assume he was referring to the use by various religious orders of a mechanism or control over their flocks to advance their own agendas.

As part of a reconciliation process, one has to deal with the past. If one does not deal with the past, one will not arrive at the intellectual or emotional need. In dealing with reconciliation, one must start at the beginning - the reasons one was in conflict, the motivating factors behind conflict in general, one's influence in getting people to be part of the conflict and so forth. I watch Al Jazeera and other television networks every night. There is religious connotations to most conflicts throughout the world, including in Syria and the Balkans. People kill themselves because of religion, God, Allah and so on. If one looks deep enough, the religious grouping to which people belong in conflicts becomes the excuse but behind that are inequality, poverty, a state's treatment of its peoples, denial of identity and so on. All these aspects must be dealt with.

With regard to the reasons for the Six Counties conflict, we are 15 years on from the Good Friday Agreement and we are in a much better place. A great deal of hard work has gone into it. I disagree with Dr. Mason in so far as I think there is a relationship between combatants on both sides, particularly in formerly republican and loyalist communities. There is a relationship, understanding and dialogue. That dialogue has kept a lid on everything but it has not addressed why just under the surface there is the ability to push us back to where we were. That is what we have to address.

I refer again to effects of trauma and conflict.

Everybody who lived on the island of Ireland during that period has been traumatised by what happened. I am a former prisoner of war, POW, of that conflict. My children have been affected by it even though they live nearly 400 miles away from it. Everybody has been affected by it and the issue is how we deal with that as we move forward. I recall Jackie McDonald describing himself to the committee as a former POW. That was his status and he made a very valid argument in making that point. I am a former POW and that is part of what I was and am. For many of us who were part of this, conflict became an avenue created by the circumstances and conditions that prevailed at the time. The denial of what the witness spoke about, that dialogue and the intellectual and emotional arguments, albeit in a political context, contributed to prolonging the hurt and the pain.

However, we are in a better place, although we have a long way to go. I fully concur that it will take a lot longer. I think we have not even touched the surface. Until such time as there is integration from an educational point of view, one's religion or lack of religion is a personal thing and not an excuse to be part of a flock and there is an economy that serves all of our people we will always have, under the surface, a dormant sense that will create that division and hurt as we move forward. I have not put a question, I just put forward an observation from my point of view. I believe we have an opportunity and our generation must take it. When our generation leaves this world we must leave it as a better place. We will do that by dealing with many of the matters the witness mentioned, the institutional aspect, the emotional trauma, the inequalities and the economics that are not serving people but only certain individuals within society. Unless we deal with all of that, there will always be the underlying current that will contribute to division into the future.