Ms Bronagh Hinds:

I will first respond to the query about civil organisations. We are very lucky with our civil society organisations in Northern Ireland. A colleague whom I was working decided to take some time out to travel across the world and learn from civil society organisations elsewhere. When he returned, he said he was amazed to discover there were more civil society organisations in Northern Ireland than elsewhere and they were more developed. These organisations have managed some unbelievable complexity. In my view they have been under-recognised and underlauded throughout the conflict in terms of what they have done.

I will outline a problem I am looking at now. Way before we had the PEACE programme moneys, Quintin Oliver, who was the director of the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action - I was its chair - and the NICVA, which is the umbrella body of civil society organisations in Northern Ireland in the community and voluntary sector, did a lot of work to create links with Europe. They were involved with Departments in setting up committees and the distribution of funding, and then that moved on to become PEACE funding. I am referring to the original funding for building prosperity and all of that. We were already negotiating and writing things while working with officials in Northern Ireland, including things in documents sent to Europe. For example, we came up with the concept of community infrastructure and I dreamed up that concept. We argued about significant investment in community infrastructure and, indeed, the EU invested in that. We made an input into the original document, which had the first North-South chapter. We put some of that in the North-South chapter. We particularly wanted North-South collaboration between strategic organisations but the implementation of that was not as farsighted and it never went much past the Border. We wanted North-South co-operation on the Border but also in a more strategic way, which I think we are moving towards now and that is great to see.

We had a strategy to support the development of the community and voluntary sectors in Northern Ireland. It is something that we engaged on and steered through in Northern Ireland, from the voluntary sector through NICVA. It was a Government strategy. We worked with officials on that. They were officials in the Department of Health in those days because there was no Department with responsibility for communities and not much investment in community infrastructure. We said to those officials that we knew that they could get the money from Europe, which would assist the coffers in Northern Ireland and that is exactly what happened. Since that time, even though various Departments fund civil society in Northern Ireland, a lot of the moneys have come through matching European moneys through the European Social Fund, PEACE moneys and everything else. Those organisations have been absolutely fundamental in terms of what they have done in communities and are absolutely fundamental going forward. We know the situation with the moneys. Even though the PEACE money will continue for a period, it will be less. There will be a great loss unless the funding is replaced. We are going to lose organisations. Hundreds of these organisations are putting people on notice now because the resourcing is not there. An active civil society is necessary to protect the fabric of society. It is a measure of a democracy. We are a premier example of it in the world and we need to keep it going.

On the need for a civic forum, for the Stormont House Agreement and the Fresh Start Agreement I came up with a proposal for a compact civic advisory panel. I am not sure many people know about the panel.

However, it was to deal with two issues a year and report to the executive. It is good in that it is about strategic thinking, strategies and plans on issues to help shape Northern Ireland’s future and to think beyond the immediate but it does not have the same standing or clout as a civic forum and that is a pity. I do not think people here know about it. It seems very internalised.

On the point about the St. Andrews Agreement and polarisation, the problem is that we have polarisation in Northern Ireland and we have to overcome that. There are groups working on trying to do that. We had to built-in a mechanism for protections and cross-community voting. That goes back to the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement and what Ms Gildernew was talking about the fundamentals and I am a supporter of putting in those fundamentals; we would not have got the agreement without it but what we have had is excessive use. What was tried to be resolved - I think it was in the Stormont House Agreement but we have had multiple talks and agreements since the Good Friday Agreement - was to stop the excessive use of petitions of concern which increasingly polarise people. They were being used constantly and, I must say, they were being used mainly constantly by one party, namely, the Democratic Unionist Party. We need to stop that way of doing business. That was my reference to collaborative government.

In the St. Andrews Agreement, the DUP also negotiated some changes there which it has now found in the context of the current Assembly and who ends up as First and Deputy First Minister that perhaps it made a mistake. Is that good or is it bad? In my view it is important. It is a democracy. It needs to get back into government and it needs to accept Michelle O’Neill as the First Minister because Sinn Féin won the vote to be the first party in Northern Ireland.

I think what I am saying is this: it goes back to the same point. Whether it is the Good Friday Agreement – and I have said that it needs to be more inclusive in voting – St. Andrews Agreement or whatever other agreement, it is up to the political parties to begin to step up and exhibit collective cabinet government and a demonstration of reconciliation and absolutely working together, not silos and not ministers saying “I take my decisions and don’t interfere and you take your decisions and don’t interfere; I am doing this for my community and you are doing this for your community.” That needs to be done. In addition, we need to invest in integrated education and take courageous steps to do mixed housing and attacking the paramilitaries so that mixed housing areas are not under threat. That is the thing to stop polarisation, but it requires leadership from politicians.