John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I offer a big thank you to Mr. O'Hagan, Mr. Quigley and Mr. Culbert for that. I offer apologies on the committee's behalf for the technological difficulties we are experiencing in this room. It was the same there so we only heard bits and pieces.

I have a couple of basic questions. I will rattle them off rather than asking one question, getting an answer and coming back in, particularly as we might have further technological difficulties. My first question was mentioned in one of the opening statements, but I could not hear what was said. Roughly how many ex-prisoners are there on the island of Ireland? What is the ballpark figure for the number of people Coiste na nIarchimí represents? It was said the level of peace programme funding can be haphazard and go up and down in different years. What type of funding on average does Coiste na nIarchimí get from the peace programme? Is there any other funding streams it can avail of? Where does the majority of its funding come from? One of our guests mentioned that the organisation works to remove legislative barriers that still exist. Will the witnesses outline a couple of the key legislative barriers they think still exist, whether in Northern Ireland or in the South? I googled the website before the witnesses came in and I looked at the walking tours their organisation does. When we visit Belfast, it would be excellent if it was available for members of the committees to take part in some of those walking tours. That would be interesting.