Ms Jacqueline Irwin:

I will pick up on a few of the points and then pass over to colleagues. I apologise if I miss anything and the members should feel welcome to come back on it.

On the Agreement, we have all underestimated the extent to which it is as difficult to stay within the terms of an agreement once it is signed, as it sometimes can be to reach the agreement in the first place. I believe we have underestimated the extent to which we need to very systematically watch progress post a political settlement. That is the big learning over the past couple of decades. In that sense today is no different from any other day. The challenge is to keep going, recognise where the dips are, identify them and deal with them, and keep going.

So what is unique about the circumstances we find ourselves in at the moment? It is a bit of a perfect storm as Mr. Osborne has said. We have well-rehearsed political difficulties at the regional level. In some ways there is nothing new about that, but they are fairly difficult and well-reported matters. At the same time we have a falling away of the resources to support keeping the work going. There are two dimensions to that. One is the international component, the very welcome support we have had from Europe and America over many years - as well as from the Irish Government, if I may say it. Some significant amounts of that funding are falling away just at the same moment as we are having some local domestic difficulties within our own budget. So that notion of just keeping going is under some degree of practical threat.

Another issue is structural change. We are almost a couple of decades into the Agreement at this stage and there is a shift coming. We have considerable change ahead of us regarding local government reform. That will change some of the structures. It represents a great opportunity to do more collaborative working to think about these issues in the round. I completely agree with all members who made reference to that. So there is an opportunity. There is also a degree of threat because for the new councils there will be a bedding-in period. They have been many practical issues to resolve. There will be a falling-way of some of the staff who would have been familiar with these matters in the natural wastage that occurs during these changes. So we have a structural component to this at the same time.

Within that structural dynamic and taking time into account, we also have a generational shift. I completely agree with the member; it probably will be the next generation who can really move things on. However, we also have some evidence to suggest that the next generation might be just as thirsty to go back again if we were not very careful - they will have forgotten. That is unbelievable in some ways, but it is also a very worrying feature. We have to be really careful that the learning that our generation has and the dreadful experiences that our generation has, that the best of what to do about dealing with conflict and deal with social cohesion is passed on to those who come after us so that they know how to take care of these matters as we move forward.

I will now deal with some of the specific issues raised. On integrated education, members will know there is a model that is favoured at the moment in the region, which is referred to as shared education. This is built on the notion that we need to start where people are and get them used to the idea of being engaged with each other, which may include shared campuses, shared facilities and working together on some specific projects. We believe there is a great deal of truth. It is not possible to start from somewhere other than where people find themselves. There are many people who are not yet ready for integrated education. However, if the proposal is to start with shared education, then on this question of keeping an eye on whether we are implementing the spirit of the agreement, we should ask whether shared education will get us to where we need to be quickly enough. So the question then is whether we have the luxury of time here or whether we need to take time much more seriously.

Every child who goes through a separated education system is one child who has lost the opportunity of working and living together. That is a price to be paid and we should measure it every time we make the choice to leave the issue for another while to be addressed until we all feel better about it. I would frame the question in those terms.

A member mentioned the great effort being made at local level, as has been the case for many years, and the way in which that links to political and other change. I completely agree with that view. If we are to challenge ourselves about that, what has been missing over the last period of time has been a degree of connecting all that up, whereby we would have a sense that all of those individual worthwhile efforts are greater than the sum of their parts. We have failed to get to the point at which that feels like a connected-up, resilient movement for change that can weather the storms of political challenge. We have not quite got there yet, and this next phase of peace-building needs to take that opportunity into account so that we can see where we can get with that matter.

I wish to make one a final comment, before handing over to my colleagues, about the committee's participation, which I welcome. Whenever the sovereign Governments get involved in the issues of the region, it is described sometimes, even by the Governments, in terms of something having failed, that politics at the local level has not managed to do whatever it needs to do and therefore the guarantors need to step in. There is of course an element of truth to that. If we go back to the Agreement - not only the spirit of it but what is written down - we can see it is unique. It is not only a question of regional involvement, which would be a smaller measure in many ways; it leaves room for North-South, east-west access. It is that aspect that triple-locked the safety of the peace process. It would be helpful if we were to remember that and to think again about the way in which we could do it. We are still learning and we are in the next phase of the post-political settlement. Rather than viewing it in some sense or other as our not having managed to get to where we need to be - we are very sober-eyed about how far we have got and what more needs to be done - we should revisit some of the early difficult agreements that were reached and really honour them.