Ms Claire Hanna:

I thank Mr. O'Connor. It has been a real pleasure to listen to him for the last hour or so and to hear all his recollections, all the colour and much of the backstory that explains where certain parts of the architecture came from and how some of the stops and starts came about. In retrospect, we remember the big dates and the big moments but we often do not remember what caused them or how different problems were resolved. It is also really important to celebrate the role of civil servants, particularly those from the Department of Foreign Affairs who were there throughout the process. I know Mr. O'Connor's involvement long predates the Good Friday Agreement and in addition to the political layer, there was a generation of real problem-solvers, who are not so in fashion politically now. It is now more about how to duck and dive around problems rather than how to solve them structurally. I heard someone saying that we had architects for years and now have decorators. Mr. O'Connor talked about an approach of not getting everything you want in the Good Friday Agreement. That is hard for us to take sometimes.

It is important to remember that it is also about how we consent to the things that we do not want. For example, those of us who want a new Ireland have consented to a different constitutional configuration for the time being because that is what the majority of people want at the moment.

I wish to talk about some of the solutions that the Good Friday Agreement might provide at the moment for some of the Brexit challenges, in particular. In the SDLP, we like to say it is not an ornament but a toolkit. Within the strands of the agreement, there are solutions to many of the different problems we face. I know that one of the concerns that is raised post Brexit about the protocol is the issue of the democratic deficit. I will leave aside the irony of people bringing down the whole of Government in protest at a supposed democratic deficit on some very small aspects of EU regulation. I understand that in the years immediately after 1998, there was discussion at the North-South Ministerial Council about how that body could be better used to feed into the European structures. That fell away during the suspension that happened in approximately 2001. Perhaps Mr. O'Connor could comment on that.

Senator Currie has a real gift for asking questions that you wish you had thought of yourself. She asked about changes. Mr. O'Connor is correct that it is ultimately a matter of approach and ethos. I have a bit of a hobby horse in this committee about the functioning of strand one. Does Mr. O'Connor have any suggestions about how best to approach a reappraisal or recalibration of strand one and how the structures could be improved?