Mr. Bertie Ahern:

If Boris is coming back, I think he will definitely feel he has followed his great belief in Churchill. In terms of dialogue, co-operation and trying to work, I do not know what it is like in the Houses nowadays - I can only watch a certain amount of it on TV - but Northern Ireland discussions and debates and Question Time used to take up nearly all the time at one time. I know there are a lot of competing demands nowadays for time. The real dialogue can come from the Border counties in particular because they are dealing with the same issues relating to business, agriculture and trade. There is no difference. The more of that that happens the better.

In fairness, I think many of the young people coming up are open to debate and dialogue, but it is how the case is put to them that will be the challenge for the period ahead. There is so much information nowadays. Social media plays its part. It fills so much. It was easier to focus the debate into certain areas but now it is harder to do it. I am confident. Ms Gildernew is right. There are a lot of people involved. From my time in Queen's University, I know there are very good debates and dialogue about where people are going. The only thing I would say is that we just need to be careful and not to over-scare people because they need to be pulled into the debate. That is the big challenge. I do not want to mention any names, but I try my best with politicians in the North and say to them that they should participate in the debate. It is a hard sell to them. They really feel that if they participate in the debate, they are being sucked in to something they cannot get out of, which is not the case. We have to say to them that what we are trying to do is just have a debate about the future. They should not feel the future is being orchestrated just one way. There has to be balance in the debates because if there is not, they see it as being all one way. I know people were trying to do that in the debate in the conference centre a few weeks ago but it is very important that these things are seen to be even-handed, and that people are given their right of audience and if they go along, they are treated with respect and dignity and everyone gets a chance. If we get into the business of shouting people down, it just looks all wrong. I know how that fits into the mindset of unionists and loyalists. When we do have debates down here, we have to be careful how they are handled.