Ms Michelle Gildernew:

I welcome the participants and it is great to have this discussion this evening. They urged caution earlier and spoke about not having a citizens' assembly too early when there is not willingness from all participants. We have seen in the recent past the unwillingness from political unionism to engage but that is not to say that civic unionism would not want to be part of this conversation. The work done by groups like Ireland's Future in bringing forward and enabling that unionist voice to be heard within the debate has been useful and helpful. Do the witnesses have a view that if political unionism believed it could stall this process, the vetoing of the citizens' assembly would be a vehicle for it to do so?