Ms Michelle Gildernew:

Okay, but the point I am making is that a majority voted for it. It is a bit like Brexit. A majority of people here voted against leaving the EU and we are left with the decisions taken across the water.

I was reasonably young at the time of the negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement and not involved in them. I was Sinn Féin's representative in London so I was kind of watching from the sidelines at that point and not heavily involved in any of the bilateral or trilateral meetings. I do remember very clearly, however, after the Good Friday Agreement was signed and delivered and all the rest of it, that there was a furious round of engagements within our party. We had brought members of the African National Congress, ANC, over at our own expense. We went on the road. We had big meetings with hundreds of people; we had smaller meetings with two or three people around a kitchen table. We went out and sold the agreement. I remember Mitchel McLaughlin saying at an event in Toomebridge that people in the room needed to read the agreement and then read it again. There was an acceptance and an acknowledgement that this was not a republican document and did not give us everything we wanted but was a template from which we could work. I was at an event a couple of weeks ago in Monaghan at which Deputy Tully said the Good Friday Agreement did not answer the constitutional question but asked it. I thought that was a very interesting way of putting it.

Since that time, we have seen some really important and fundamental aspects of the Good Friday Agreement not implemented, and that is what I would like the witnesses to focus their thoughts on. We are still waiting for a bill of rights. I have written to previous British Prime Ministers and have been told there is no demand for it. All the issues we were very exercised about in the run-up to the Good Friday Agreement we are still very concerned about. We are where we are on an Irish language Act, and it has been painstaking to get something on the table in that regard. There are issues around women's reproductive health, marriage equality and so on. These are issues we have really struggled to bring forward in the 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement. There are also, as I discussed with Tim O'Connor last week, the North-South bodies and the arrangements we have for co-operative work on the island of Ireland in a myriad of ways. I know there was a draft list which was reduced significantly, and what we got was the bones of what was left, but we would have thought that those areas of work would have grown as well during the intervening years and we would have continued to build trust and relationships across the island of Ireland and to work in a very cohesive, pragmatic and constructive way to deliver for all the people on the island.

Lastly, Mr. Donoghue referred in his opening statement to validating Irish unity "as a legitimate political objective". What are the witnesses' thoughts on how that has been? The "when" of a referendum has almost become an "if", and it is important that that does not happen. Irish unity is a legitimate political objective and we are entitled to continue to work towards it. Others are entitled to work towards their political objectives as well. There seems, however, to be a rowing back on that issue, and I would like the witnesses' thoughts on that too.