Ms Paddy Kelly:

I will come back to reflect on the particular work we are doing with colleagues in the Children's Rights Alliance. I thank the Chairman, the committee, Ms Haworth and Ms Charlton for inviting me to speak today. This is a matter very dear to my heart and I would like to reflect specifically on the importance of philanthropy. I welcome that the Government is preparing a national policy on philanthropy. In reflecting on that, I will explain why it is so important to us in the Children's Law Centre.

For those members who do not know us, the Children's Law Centre is a rights-based organisation working on social justice and using the law to vindicate children's rights. When we were set up 24 years ago, it was on the back of a very small grant of £30,000 per year for two years from the Community Foundation Northern Ireland. That grant allowed us to leverage money from the historic health and social services boards. From that we are now in a position where we help 3,500 children every year to vindicate their rights. By this I mean that children are able to access mental health services and education. Homeless children are able to find somewhere to live and refugees and asylum seekers are able to live securely and safely.

This only happens because of philanthropy and the work of the Community Foundation Northern Ireland. As a result of that £60,000 grant 24 years ago, there are tens of thousands of children and young people in the North who have been able to live happy childhoods and realise their potential. There are literally children who are alive today as a consequence of that small grant. I think particularly of a young man who but for the Children's Law Centre and the grant allowing us to be established would have been sent back to Afghanistan in the near future. I congratulate those involved on the development of this national policy on philanthropy and I hope those in Stormont take note of it and develop a similar policy or approach.

I also reflect on the importance of civil society organisations working North and South with respect to the peace process. It is without fear of contradiction that I can speak about the role played by organisations like the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Centre for Humanitarian Action in ensuring human rights protections in the Good Friday Agreement. They ensured those protections were there and, insofar as it is possible, they have realised the potential of these in the intervening years. Those organisations exist by virtue of the funding through philanthropy. Again, the organisations came together, along with ourselves and the Children's Rights Alliance, to try to put on the agenda the importance of rights protections as the UK withdrew from the EU. It was about ensuring the rights protections in the Good Friday Agreement were safeguarded.

It is again important to recognise the role that organisations North and South played together in seeing that those rights protections existed in the protocol. I will leave it there but I am very happy to answer specific questions on the work done by us and the Children's Rights Alliance.