Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will start my questions with Ms Myers. I mentioned youth work and the importance it played in my early life. I do not feel that here in the South we are investing enough in universal youth services. I believe this has become more of an issue in recent years. If we were giving enough funding to universal youth services, it would pay dividends. It would certainly help to fuel this conversation. I really see value in a 32-county approach to youth work. We also need more adult volunteers. There needs to be more awareness of getting adults to participate. They are an essential part of this as well.

With regard to Lanark Way and the interface, I am aware of how much youth workers did last year in holding people back and persuading them that returning to the past is not the way for the future and is not the way for progress. I absolutely hear Ms Lynch's point, and I will return to this shortly.

With regard to Mr. Millar's contribution, we should take it as an action point for today that when we look at the framework and the size and the scale of the work we must do in approaching constitutional change, children's rights must be a key part of that. This applies not just here on this island but also in the international context. I really appreciate Mr. Millar highlighting that knowledge, empowerment and awareness of rights must be part of that. This is the beauty of what we are doing now. We can write the vision for what we want.

I completely agree with what Ms Clyde said about apprenticeships. I am pleased that she has a pathway that is working for her. It can work for many other people too. Just last week our Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, announced more apprenticeships in farming. One of them was in sports turf. I did not really know what this was, but I learned that it involves work in places like golf courses. The number of different apprenticeships will increase to approximately 100 over the next couple of years. Again, it must be a key feature of our framework, our vision for apprenticeships as a pathway and the creation of opportunities.

I completely agree with Ms Mallaghan about the Assembly. The Assembly is not optional. Power-sharing was set up because when we share power, we share our problems and we realise that we have so much more in common than we have in terms of our differences. Using those differences to collapse the Assembly, and to create a cycle of collapse and crisis, is not doing anybody any good. At a time when we are facing a cost-of-living crisis, the witnesses' elected representatives are not able to do the job they were put there to do. I absolutely agree with the witnesses that it is time for politicians to stop letting the Good Friday Agreement down, and to work it as best as possible. I will not just concentrate on the politicians in the North. Over the past 25 years there were three strands to the Good Friday Agreement and they all need to work together. All of those institutions have to be worked with a permanency. We need to see a recommitment to that permanency as we approach the 25-year anniversary.

With regard to the youth workers' voice, we need their voice for this conversation to be effective. In that spirit, we would welcome any suggestions and any ideas. It goes back to what I said previously about how young people are part of this conversation. They help us to create a vision that brings people with us while we are talking not just about what a united Ireland is in conceptual terms but also about what that actually means.