Mr. John Dallat:

Members of the Oireachtas in the Republic of Ireland have every right to be interested and concerned. I am old enough to know the price paid by Ireland as a whole following the last collapse of the process in the North. I do not want to be emotive or to suggest that the dark clouds of storm are gathering again. Ms Kelly, MLA, referred to parades. I represent east Derry where the paramilitaries are re-engaging and carrying out punishment beatings in increasing numbers. They are filling the gap that is being created by the failure of the Assembly to engage the wider community. Just as we discovered in 1998, after 30 years, there is no greater weapon against violence and a breakdown in society than engagement with the widest spectrum of people.

Those who are engaged, the architects of the Good Friday Agreement, acknowledge that, which is why these structures were provided for. I am the longest serving member of the Public Accounts Committee which, like its Oireachtas equivalent, looks at the historical blunders of Departments. Would it not be great to have an advisory body that was able to identify where Departments need to improve and bring forward initiatives that address the problems in health, education and a spectrum of other services that are not functioning properly?

Ms Kelly, MLA, has covered the issue of expense. What price does one put on one person losing his or her life? What price does one put on 4,000 who lost their lives, with practically every graveyard in the North containing the remains of somebody who died as a result of failure? Members of the SDLP are not here today to preach doom and gloom. However, we are being responsible by highlighting the awful vacuum that is being created. The former Minister for Finance, Mr. Sammy Wilson, MLA, recently said in the Assembly that he would neuter every cross-Border body. That goes back to the old days of Unionism, which believed it could do it on its own. It cannot do it on its own; two parties cannot do it on their own. The five principal parties cannot do it on their own without involvement because the North is not a normal society but one that needs to be nurtured an awful lot to engage that wider community.

Along with Ms Kelly, MLA, and Ms McNeill, I am making an impassioned plea to all elected representatives, North and South as well as wider afield, to recognise that a serious vacuum is developing in the North and it is being managed by huge sums of money spent on increased policing and so on, which is not the answer. The answer lies in the wider community feeling ownership of what we have.