Dr. Duncan Morrow:

I will respond to Mr. Hazzard; having worked in civil society, his challenge is one which should be made. There is always a complex relationship between civil society and the political elected class because there is always a degree to which people who are not elected wish to be taken more seriously than they feel they are. Unless there is a wider conversation in society it just becomes far too narrow. We may now be reaching a point where that is consistently the case. However, there are mechanisms there. PEACE IV exists. The International Fund for Ireland still has funds. There is a Community Relations Council. The Victims Commissioner has a role. There are all sorts of things.

Politicians have seriously argued that they need to hear a more mature conversation in civil society and would like to see that being fostered and owned. Some of that involves having a space for risk and for a complex and open political conversation, and a renewed space, what used to be called a "safe space", to discuss this kind of stuff. It is a complex issue and must be done in different places, and what is safe for one person may not be safe for another and so on. Nevertheless, there is a genuine need at this point to improve the quality of the dialogue, its complexity, its evidence base and its emotional intelligence, which would introduce a context within which an oral history archive, truth recovery or even the question of investigation starts to look like an answer. I do think that platform should now be formally encouraged because it is not coming through in the media. The media is becoming more and more like a Punch and Judy show which is not helpful.