Mr. Pat Hynes:

-----and show courage in the effort to embark on that journey. Peacemaking is a journey. One does not frontload the destination in the first few steps. Start the journey and let the destination take care of itself. In that way, one will test sincerity, that is, whether people are sincere in their efforts to meet the concerns of society and those who may have been harmed as a consequence of what we went through 30 and 40 years ago. As Mr. Molloy has acknowledged, our organisation does not encourage positional debate, which is pointless. In the context of our work, we want to see if we can humanise relationships to a point where people do not feel they have to attack and there is a genuine engagement and recognition that people are coming into a space where they have genuine concerns that must be addressed and genuine questions that have heretofore not been answered.

Finally, I would say to Senator Black that the figure of 4,000 suicides since the signing of the agreement shows the massive impact the conflict has had on Northern Ireland as a society, so there is a huge obligation on committees such as this one and other organisations to be aware of that growing number.