Reverend Karen Sethuraman:

I thank everyone for the opportunity to be part of today's meeting. It has been an absolute honour. I have loved meeting everyone, some of whom I follow on Twitter and others of whom I have had some interaction with previously. A lot has been covered in the past few minutes, but I will try to keep my response brief.

Ms Begley asked if unionists would engage. I believe they would. Mr. Lunn mentioned that 40% of people do not vote. There will always be a pool of people who will pull up the drawbridge and not engage, but I still believe the majority would be open to conversations. On the question as to whether this would contribute to reconciliation; it would. Anything that seeks to bring together what is divided is reconciliation. This would be a phenomenal beacon to the world in terms of a willingness to go further down the road on this.

On the civic forum, Deputy Smith is correct that it last convened in 2002. I think the 2014 Stormont House Agreement also provided for the establishment of a civic forum, but that has not happened. If any of the representatives from the North are listening in, that might be something worthy of consideration. To be honest, there is nothing wrong with setting up a civic forum, but it needs to go beyond the North. We are at the stage now where we need to do North and South if we are to build on the work that has been done already and is being done in terms of the shared island dialogue.

Ms Gildernew asked what would help unionists. We need to maximise the welcome and listening. As I said earlier, we are going to go ahead with this and they would be an addition to that work. This is already our home and they should work with us to make it better. That constant welcome is important. As someone in ministry life once said to me, "You've got to keep reaching out your hand even if it's cut off." It is important we do that. The welcome and listening is important. For me, 95% of ministry life is listening to people, not trying to solve their problems or fix them. When people feel listened to, they will contribute. I again thank the committee for this opportunity.