Mr. John McCallister:

It is good to see Senator Blaney. I congratulate him on his return to the Seanad.

As we get buy-in, we can use measures such as citizens' assemblies. What I have been seeing from the public have been incredibly high levels of support, as mentioned by Professor Tonge. On some of the key issues, I sense that the public is well ahead of the politicians. There is certainly buy-in and support. People want to see good government. Sometimes one has to manage expectations as to what a government can deliver, but I certainly sense the public appetite to get on. There are no great alternatives out there, as Professor Tonge pointed out. Direct rule does not have public buy-in. What we have, like it or loathe it, is what we have. The vast majority of the population will know an MLA personally. As a result, there is a very much a culture of chatting to people and knowing about and supporting local issues, which people like. All elected colleagues across both jurisdictions know this.

Senator McGreehan referred to the lack of powers. I agree with Professor Tonge's point. I would very much have been a supporter of devolving tax varying powers to the assembly, but one would have to reform it first. I would love to see the assembly being more powerful but it must be reformed and functioning. In my view, that would be a truly collective, functioning government, preferably with an opposition holding it to account. We went through a period where politics had no consequences, and even the failure and bringing down of the assembly in 2017 had no real impact on the electoral support of the parties. Consider, for example, the political parties that had to take very difficult decisions ten or 12 years ago. This had a real impact for them when it came to elections. We have not had that and it is part of building up an actual parliamentary culture.

From a personal perspective, I was very pleased that Professor Tonge mentioned how productive the assembly was between 2007 and 2016, which entirely reflected my membership of it. I do not wish to take all of the credit for that.