Dr. Ciara Fitzpatrick:

In terms of encouraging the North to move towards a more humane social security system, an often overlooked constitutional fact is that Northern Ireland has full devolutionary powers when it comes to social security, and it has done since 1922. What we are really strangled by is the fact that we are bound to using the computer systems and welfare state infrastructure that is developed in Westminster. To deviate from those systems would cost a huge amount of money. As Dr. Boland mentioned in his statement, the mitigation package, which put in place a number of really crucial mitigations for those people who are worst impacted by welfare reform in the UK, shows there is an appetite across all parties for a different way.

It is the logistical reality which is very difficult for policy-making in the North in terms of deviation from the computer systems. As well as this, the money paid for any deviation from social security policy has to be found in the block grant or the budget provided to Northern Ireland through the Barnett consequentials. There are a lot of political complexities in terms of the North's relationship with Westminster and how we can operate differently.

I certainly think the statistics are starting to do a lot of talking for themselves. We can see how the Republic of Ireland is moving ahead of Northern Ireland on so many measures, including educational attainment, skills attainment and living standards. As Dr. Boland mentioned, the ESRI is doing fantastic work across the board in showing how these divergences are growing. It is important that we keep shedding light on this. Northern Ireland is in a state of political and legal quagmire. We are not moving anywhere fast. We cannot make progress on anything because we have no Government. We hope this will change in the autumn. I hope the DUP decides to come back to the table much sooner than this, particularly given the cost-of-living crisis which is compounding all of the problems that Northern Ireland has had historically, in terms of our levels of people on disability benefit, economic inactivity, support for carers and educational underachievement.