Mr. John Bruton:

I spent a lot of time working on this paper and went back through all the different sources of information like White Papers, the CAIN chronology and all that stuff.

The funny thing is that it is only when you leave office that you fully understand some of the things you were dealing with. You have a certain perspective that you do not have when you are in the middle of the heat of battle. What can we learn from our experiences? The Good Friday Agreement was negotiated under acute pressure. The pressure was partly to make sure the IRA did not return to violence. We should not be too critical. I was quite critical in my presentation about some of the omissions in the Good Friday Agreement. I think one should not be too critical of them but no document is the last word on any problem. There is a case for looking at aspects of the Good Friday Agreement from various perspectives to see how it can be improved. Perhaps that is something this committee could look at - not in the sense of denigrating the achievement of the agreement but to build on it.