Mr. Pat Hynes:

We meet the political parties in the North every month. I meet representatives from various parties, several times a month in some cases. In addition, I meet with particular communities, drawing from the loyalist community as well, to encourage discussion around the issues which have bedevilled us over the past two years.

As stated previously, Brexit has caused a profound disturbance with regard to everything in terms of where we are going. I do not think we can discount the impact of Brexit on the politics of relationships over the past several years. We also had the opportunity to meet many of the European Union's Foreign Ministers and Ministers with responsibility for and European affairs. I would have brought them either to the Border or met them here. We would have included political representatives, North and South, in discussions with them, as well as the 27 ambassadors resident in Dublin as part of the EU missions. This is an effort to explain and broaden the discussion around where we think the issue will go in the future. For many of these ambassadors, this is a complicated issue. For many of them trying to understand the sensitivity of the Border and so on, this has proved worthwhile as an exchange. We were able to introduce people to concepts and challenges at European level, as well as to engage with political people north of the Border with a view to getting their fears and concerns around where Brexit might ultimately leave the island, not just in political but economic and social terms.

For the past several years - I am somewhat constrained by confidentiality in terms of names and details – there have continued to be conversations which touched on all of the issues affecting the resuscitation of the institutions, as well as the wider impact of Brexit, the issues which will fall out of that and wherever we may end up in the years ahead.

These conversations touch on legacy, as well as economic and social issues. For example, they touch on education issues in Northern Ireland, particularly where communities are disadvantaged as a consequence of poor educational attainment and poor employment opportunities that follow. All of these issues are important to these communities. We continue to host discussions and dialogue on them in an effort to make people both in the South and the North aware of the importance of addressing these issues.