Lord Empey:

The short answer to the Deputy's question is that I agree with the sentiments expressed by Bertie Ahern at Stormont on Monday. We must remember that this is an all-party agreement as well as an agreement between the two Governments. The changes that have been made to it were done not involving all parties but only some parties, which is against the spirit of the agreement.

There are so many complications in it that if you start picking at things, you get unintended consequences. This is what has already happened. No agreement can remain static forever. It does not have to. It has the capacity to change, which is built into it, but I agree that to open up a Pandora's box now regarding how the Executive should be constructed or how Stormont could be run would take us down a blind alley we would never get out of. It would take years and we would have arguments over everything. You would open up the whole thing and everything would be on the table. It would be a mistake. We should concentrate on trying to get it running and delivering for people in the middle of a cost-of-living catastrophe for many. I do not believe we should start mucking around with it at this stage. We should operate it to the best of our abilities. Once it is going, we can look at and talk about things. The Assembly can set up committees. We can do all sorts of things between the parties and where necessary, between the governments but opening all of that up again would be a fatal mistake. I certainly agree with Bertie Ahern on that.