Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms McNamee. Anyone listening to her or Ms McGlone would be very clear that they are very complimentary of the achievement of the Good Friday Agreement. Ms McNamee said it was a fabulous and massive achievement. All of us around this table would agree with that and we compliment those who made it possible. It is up to all of us to ensure it is implemented in full. I have often said we have not maximised the potential of the agreement. There is so much more to be done by all of us on this island and by the Irish and British Governments. That will be the case for some time into the future as well.

The witnesses spoke about the importance of conversations, and Senator Blaney reflected those thoughts as well. We are short quite a number of members today as some of our colleagues are attending an all-island, cross-Border event in Enniskillen. It is a shared island event and that is especially focused on women's issues, as far as I know. One of my colleagues, Senator McGreehan, said she could not make it here today because she was attending that important event in Enniskillen. I mentioned the shared island. The shared island initiative is facilitating conversations at sectoral level, be those related to tourism or different aspects of our everyday living. It is important we have those conversations at different levels, whether in the community and voluntary sector, tourism and hospitality, agriculture or different sports. There are many important issues we can address on an all-Ireland basis. Those conversations at sectoral level are very important and they will get to the nub of problems much more quickly and with a greater significance than a citizens' assembly that deals with every subject matter. Conversations at micro level as well as the macro level are important.

The witnesses mentioned the PEACE education programme. Some of their programmes have been funded by PEACE IV. In response to questions I put in the Dáil recently, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform stated it is hoped the new PEACE PLUS programme will be formally signed off on by Europe in the not-too-distant future. It is the desire of the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to have that programme in place as soon as possible. I hope the Glencree project can benefit from the PEACE PLUS programme, and I am sure I speak for the committee when I say we will support Glencree in its request to the PEACE PLUS programme. We value the work the witnesses do and they have been before this committee on a number of occasions.

If we do not succeed with education and ensuring people achieve better attainment in education, some of the issues that have bedevilled society will continue. The Integrated Education Fund was before the committee recently. There are particular difficulties in a lack of attainment at second level, in further education and at third level as well. We need improvement through the different strata in education.

One programme I always thought very beneficial and useful was the Wider Horizons programme. I do not know if the witnesses are familiar with it. Our colleague here in the Oireachtas, Senator Wilson, was Youthreach co-ordinator in County Cavan at the time and he had a number of youth training programmes going between groups in this State and groups in Northern Ireland. Deputy Tully would know this from her vocational education committee in County Cavan. The Youthreach centres collaborated with similar groups in Northern Ireland. Youth groups from Northern Ireland came to their counterparts south of the Border and engaged in some of the work, training and learning they were doing. Similarly, the groups from here travelled north. Part of that programme involved travel abroad to the United States, Australia or wherever there were Irish communities. Ms McGlone mentioned some of the schools and universities with a particular focus on politics as it applies to our island. They were involved in vocational programmes there. I followed up because I attended many of the events over the years in my constituency. To my knowledge, many of the contacts made by those young people at that time have continued 20 years on. That is very important.

The people who took part in those programmes were predominantly those in second chance education. Youthreach is often populated by young people who left formal education but now want to go back and follow a particular course. In many instances today it is great to see those people going back to second chance education. They then go off to the further education sector and many of them end up with primary degrees and higher qualifications as well. The Wider Horizons programme does not exist nowadays. It has been gone for a number of years but that type of programme could be beneficial in targeting a particular age group. We should build on the success of those programmes.

In her opening remarks, Ms McNamee mentioned people who are hard to reach. That is a very good phrase because it is often the people who do not engage with different groups who are left out and isolated. Maybe they think there is nobody to listen to them, help them or understand them. We all know that from our own communities. Thankfully, in Ireland today we have great senior citizens' groups and very active communities where social activities were arranged pre-Covid. Now they are, we hope, resuming for the future as well. These groups meet socially once a week or whatever. Oftentimes there is a still a cohort that will not attend those groups. Some of these people are isolated and live very lonely lives. It is about how to reach them.

In every walk of life and each sector of society there will be that small cohort that will not be reached. I do not know how to devise a mechanism to get to those people who are hard to reach. There needs to be a particular focus in all our work on reaching those people. I commend the witnesses on highlighting that within the victims' and survivors' groups. I asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if his Department was satisfied that there was engagement with the families of victims at official level. In some instances people have not sought help or maybe they have not been reached out to. It would be shocking and very disappointing if there are people who have not been given support or maybe have not sought support and who do not benefit from whatever support schemes are in place. They do not want to think of the work of WAVE Trauma Centre or other advocacy and support groups.

I have attended different Glencree events over the years, as have other colleagues on this committee, and I found them very beneficial because of the Chatham House rules. People could speak their mind at these events and 99% of the time - if not more - they would not be quoted. It is a very good concept. I was at one of the first engagements the centre held about Brexit and it was very informative. It was a time when people from different traditions were very concerned about what might emerge. The Glencree Centre's work in that regard, about which all of our colleagues have spoken today, is very important because there are so many issues still to be dealt with.

We all know the legacy issues. We need never remove the emphasis from supporting those people and trying to resolve those issues. As we all know, that is not simple.

At the beginning I read out the names of quite a number of our colleagues who could not be here but who would like to be with us today. I thank the witnesses for their excellent contributions. I have no doubt that we will have further engagement with them as a committee.