Mr. Raymond McCord:

First, I would like to address what Senator Black was talking about, which is communities and cultures. There needs to be respect. People will not respect each other's community if the politicians do not do it. Many people from within the community criticised me coming down here today. The attitude among the sectarian side within unionism is that I am coming down here to promote a united Ireland, which I am not. I am only discussing a united Ireland. I want to know what is going to be best. What I see is the total disrespect of the two big parties towards each community. The people look at their politicians to hear what they are saying. For me, everything should be non-sectarian. I suggested at one of the events in Belfast that we make sectarianism a crime and that we should not be afraid to prosecute political people for it. We want to move forward. I agree that it will be a long time, if ever, before there is a united Ireland. If people want to put up a case for a united Ireland, I feel it has to be a place where people within the unionist community are allowed to keep their culture. I am not in the Orange Order. My father was in the Orange Order and in the flag institution for the apprentice boys. I had no interest in it. There are a lot of people who have great interest in it. It is part of their life. Let me turn it around and say that if we cannot be united in Belfast how can we be united with Northern Ireland. People do not want to see people from the unionist tradition in their community or walking down the street. I can see why. The tone is that they are not welcome in this community because it is a nationalist community. I agree with them. On top of that, the erosion of the unionist community by political people in Northern Ireland is continual. People within unionism feel that they want to remove as much unionist and British culture as possible. I am 100% confident in saying that if there were a united Ireland, at the minute, unionist people would say "No".

We are talking about building structures and organising a truth commission. My opinion is that a truth commission will not work. This is not South Africa in any way whatsoever. This is about two communities. In South Africa, it was a majority who were discriminated against. In Northern Ireland, people from the nationalist community were discriminated against for years, along with Protestants too. There was bad housing. When I lived in York Street in the docks area, our houses were the exact same as those on the streets on the other side of the road from us in the New Lodge Road. People had their eyes wiped - vote for us or it is a united Ireland.

With respect, there is too much emphasis being put on the academics. The majority of people are not academics. They are working class people who did not go to university, but they know what is right and what is wrong. We had events at Queen's University and Senator Daly and Senator Currie attended them. Some 99% of the people who speak at them are ordinary working-class individuals, and they are successful. One of the problems I see in Northern Ireland in getting people together and dealing with the legacy of the Troubles is academics telling us what is best for us. It used to be politicians telling us what was best and now we get academics who are putting out papers that are being commissioned. I met Professor Harvey before.