Ms Sorcha Eastwood:

I reiterate some of the remarks made by Senator Currie, and I thank Senator McGahon for calling for this session of the committee.

On the issue of perception, what I have found interesting during this short discussion is that sometimes people almost have gone back to framing the conversation as that binary of unionism and nationalism, and that when unionists and nationalists talk that it is all well and good. In fact, as Mr. Carlin said, many people have moved away from that. Certain, in the latest council elections in my constituency of Lagan Valley the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland topped the poll in every district. We then had a historic electoral result in the December 2019 general election. Basically, one saw there the change in communities across Northern Ireland. The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland is no longer something that people used to regard decades ago as a wasted vote. That has not been the case. Indeed, that move away from unionist or nationalist parties and people going for either our party, the Green Party, People Before Profit or whoever it may be is a good thing.

Many people will not recognise the priorities or some of the remarks in the conversation we have had this morning, valuable as it is. They want to talk about health, jobs and education. We often talk about rights, but often the rights of children are ignored in terms of extremely long waits for educational statements. We have the worst waiting lists in the UK. Our health and social care staff are stretched beyond belief. We need to do something that incorporates those issues into the mainstream, rather than the traditional shibboleths. As the old saying goes, people often move a lot faster than politics. I believe we are seeing that happening now in Northern Ireland, where people are moving away from that. That is to be welcomed.

In terms of some of the thorny issues we have not mentioned, although Ms Groogan and Mr. de Faoite have mentioned tackling paramilitarism, we have tried to bring forward through the justice Department and the minister, Ms Naomi Long MLA, some of the issues around unexplained wealth orders, which seek to tackle the horrible symptoms of paramilitarism within communities, and the issue we still have of paramilitary attacks, one of which unfortunately took place last night in the North Down constituency. We still have those realities. We still have people erecting flags and banners and burning emblems. Those are some of the realities and, while they are not representative of the vast majority of people, they still occur. The issue of the wall in the mind that I spoke about earlier is evident. It is great to have these conversations and I believe it was Ms Groogan who said that we need to have some more of these before we start looking to other places, because there is no point in having these conversations if we cannot understand ourselves.