Ms Anna Mercer:

On the point about a citizens' assembly, Stratagem hosted a trial citizens' assembly on adult health and social care on behalf of a client a few years ago. One of our tasks was making the case to politicians as to why this would be helpful to the political process and not a hindrance. That journey was challenging. There were sceptics at the outset but we did manage to bring most people around. It was about making the case to the MLAs that we were not trying to replace them or challenge their mandate. That it is a very positive thing to bring the public in. All over the New Decade, New Approach agreement is a commitment to civic engagement. Professor Tonge mentioned the commitment to it. It may be actually two citizens' assemblies per year, which seems a wee bit ambitious, but we would take one and that would be a great start. We also referenced how successful these assemblies have been in the Republic on subjects such as marriage equality. It was a game changer. The assemblies changed how an issue was perceived. It is an opportunity to widen the conversation beyond those within the assembly who of course have a bit of a vested interest in sustaining some bits that they like and not others. We need to take it outside of Stormont.

On Senator McGreehan's points around having more devolved powers, I am not sure that it is about the actual powers; I believe it is the processes. The issues referred to have needed a bit of help, shall we say, from the UK Government, but they have not been reserved issues. The Irish language Act is not a reserved category, it is just because it has been too hard. We need to look at the process around how we facilitate policy development here. I have referred to some of this in my presentation such as the development of a fiscal council, which is another commitment in New Decade, New Approach that will bring better governance to some issues, and particularly around budgetary matters. We really should be looking towards how we can do this and how we can facilitate these processes. We have a lot of politics but we do not have a lot of governance. Of course there is a place for politics, which is so important, but sometimes politics can completely subsume the actual processes and then the issues get lost. This is why we need the systems and the institutions to reflect that and to have stronger foundations. The policy-making itself needs to be more robust also to take the heat out of going back to what we know, which is nationalism, unionism and constitutional positions. Taking the heat off that would be very helpful.