Mr. Arnold Hatch:

Mental health is a big issue in Northern Ireland because there are more problems per head of population there than anywhere else in the UK. Mental health is high on the agenda. Ms Linda Barnes, a former BBC reporter, emphasised that. It may surprise the committee, but I can provide a specific ask. The Good Friday Agreement we have now is not what was agreed in 1998. Whether it is politically possible or not, we need to go back to the principle of designation as opposed to privileging the largest party. As long as the two largest parties nominate the First Minister and the deputy First Minister, there will always be division. That can be seen clearly since the agreement was changed to operating on the basis of the largest party rather than designation. That is my big ask. If we are ever going to get Northern Ireland up and running properly so that there is proper co-ordination between all the parties, it must be shared fairly and equally among all of them.

I support Ms Arthurs on how to get this structure together, but we need to keep talking. There must be an easy structure that would not make it too bureaucratic, which both Governments can feel comfortable feeding into. The east Border region has the longest record of delivering cross-Border programmes so we are in pole position in terms of delivery if the Governments can just give us the funds to do it.