Very Rev. Dr. Norman Hamilton:

There are approximately 20 big items in the questions and if I were to spend ten seconds on each, no part of our response would be adequate. We would be very happy to write a paper on particular issues members have raised and to develop our thinking, we invite members to come and have a working lunch with us. We are not trying to generate work for the committee or ingratiate ourselves, but the complexity and importance of these issues are such that we cannot deal with them in 30 seconds. If it is acceptable to the committee, we would like to have an ongoing conversation in which we could explore some of these tricky issues in a more orderly way. We would even feed the members and be nice to them over lunch if that would entice them to engage in an ongoing conversation. On the basis that we could do this better over a period of time, I will make a few specific comments. Reverend Gibbon may comment on the issue of education, while Reverend Patton may also have something to say briefly.

Research shows that across the province, over a long time, at least 75% of youth work has been done in Protestant communities within the church sector. In recent years there have been other very important contributors to youth work. Even in my own congregation in north Belfast, 150 young people will come through our doors this week. It has longevity and scale, but it is by no means exclusive.

The flags issue is immensely complex, which is why I hesitate to make any real comment on it. Identity is at the heart of the flags protest. Does anybody care who we are? I am not justifying any action; I am just trying to give a perspective to understand the action. It is fundamentally about a sense of identity being rubbished or set aside. There is a very important conversation to be had about how both identities are properly reflected across the island. It is only fair to say a large section of the loyalist and Unionist community believe its identity is being set aside and not being replaced by something that is equally valuable to it. Perhaps our colleagues will have something to say on this.

The question of political leadership came up several times. I take Deputy Martin Ferris’s point-----