Ms Michelle Gildernew:

Mr. O'Connor described North-South relationships and policing as "radioactive", which is a very good choice of words. In policing, we have moved on now and things have got so much better. It is still imperfect but it is a lot better than it had been previously. Unfortunately, North-South relationships are still extremely difficult. I am sure Mr. O'Connor is still following politics in the North and knows that the North-South Ministerial Council has not been able to meet because the DUP has vetoed those arrangements. He will also be aware of the difficulties we are having around maintaining the North-South bodies.

This committee met Waterways Ireland in Enniskillen a couple of weeks ago. We were talking to the CEO, Mr. John McDonagh, who spoke about the cap on numbers and about the fact the organisation is not able to grow. He was able to show us statistics on the work that Waterways Ireland is doing in Ireland in comparison with work being done in Spain, Scotland, Portugal or England, which clearly shows the organisation is very under-resourced, both financially and in terms of staffing.

I would have imagined 25 years ago, when we were talking about all of this stuff, that by now there would be a much wider range of areas of co-operation, more North-South bodies, a lot less duplication of service on the island of Ireland and that we would have moved on considerably. What is Mr. O'Connor's view on that? How does he see us overcoming the current difficulties?