Mr. Bertie Ahern:

Sometimes when you go to the North, you meet groups who do not get much credit for the huge amount of action that is going on. The women's groups are working very hard to get over issues and to make progress. It has to come from within. People have to feel they want to reconcile. I would like to see more and more. Imagine a position here in these Houses, whereby for some reason or another we were not sitting - other than during a pandemic - and we were a non-functioning Government. The parties would definitely be working themselves to try to make these things happen. It is a pity that all of these years on, and sometimes with people who maybe should know better, they are not prepared to get into those discussions to try to find solutions. We cannot expect to sit around here waiting for Maroš Šefovi to find solutions, or whoever the next British Prime Minister is to find solutions, or for the Government down here to find solutions. All the parties in the North have to try to do this. This happened in Christmas 2019 and Christmas 2020, when Mr. Julian Smith, the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, and the parties got together for intense discussions, and they got the institutions up and running in early 2020. I would like to see that kind of intensity again, but some people do not want to engage at the moment.