Frances Black (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It has been fantastic to listen to our guest speakers and I thank them so much for coming in and for sharing their expertise and insight. As a committee, we are concerned with issues around conflict and we want conflict resolution. It is just wonderful that people like our guests attend our committee, particularly in respect of the work of peace building and all of the work they do.

I have a few points I would like to raise. There are so many questions I wish to ask. I want to know so much about our visitors. I refer to what they were saying about conversations they were having behind the scenes with unionists, with people who feel they cannot trust, do not feel safe and want to know what the future looks like.

In my role as chair of Ireland’s Future, we have had public events with unionist voices present. I remember approximately five years ago I was in Belfast at an event to celebrate the Good Friday Agreement and being amazed by the presence of a man from a unionist background whose name I cannot remember. He said that he wanted to have the conversation and that he may not agree with the other person’s position but that he wanted to know what the thinking was around the issue. He said he wanted to know what the other side was thinking and what kind of a new Ireland we were presenting to them. I thought that was very positive, in that there are unionist people who want to have the conversation.

Senator Ó Donnghaile and I were involved in the Seanad Public Consultation Committee, together with Senator Currie, and we had unionist voices appear before us. Again, it was important to listen to their fears and anxieties around identity, which is a very significant issue. It was something of an eye-opener for us but we want to know more. That is why the centre’s presence here is very important.

Like the witnesses, in the Ireland’s Future initiative, we have had people who are behind the scenes and who do not want to be seen out front talking about issues but who nonetheless are asking what we are talking and thinking about. That, however, is not what I want to talk about.

I want to ask about the centre’s programmes. Some time back, before I had ever even contemplated being a politician, or whatever one would wish to call me, I was the founder of an organisation called The Rise Foundation. This is an organisation which supports family members who have somebody they love with an addiction problem. We received some funding to run a programme and we brought some family members up to Rathlin Island. We also received some cross-community funding. We did a programme with them around their stress, anxiety and trauma with regard to having somebody they love with an addiction problem. Watching somebody one loves going down that self-destruct route is a very significant trauma. We had a cross-community programme and I have to tell the committee that it was just mind-blowing.

I am sure this is something the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation has experienced in all of its programmes. We discovered people who were struggling with the stress, anxiety and trauma, even though they were from two different communities. There was tension, as one can imagine, because some people from both communities had come through horrific situations where they had lost loved ones in the conflict. We had to manage that and I would say to Ms McNamee that that it is a very skilled job. All of our therapists are skilled and work in the field of addiction. We found a way of managing the conflicts which happened and the old traumas which arose around the conflict. It was brilliant and at the end of it they were all great friends. There was a camaraderie because they had gone through the same thing, the anxiety and trauma.

Ms McNamee, in particular, spoke about the skill and the issues which might come up in the centre’s programmes. Could she say little bit about how she manages that because it is a very precise skill? That is very much the essence of it. We talk about policy and how we can bring people with us but at the end of the day it is about that.

I will give the committee another example. I hope that is okay, a Chathaoirligh. When Brexit happened in the last term, the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement went up North. We meet a strong loyalist community in Belfast. I remember the committee going into this community centre to meet with unionists. We talked about Brexit and how it was going to happen but our hosts did not care about the impact from an economic point of view. When I started to talk about mental health, however, they started to come alive. I then started to talk about intergenerational trauma. One man spoke about walking down the road. When he hears a motorbike backfire, he suffers a complete spasm from the noise it makes. Our hosts came alive when talking about those types of topics.

I refer to issues in deprived communities where people are dealing with housing and health issues. Mental health issues are very significant because of the intergenerational trauma of the conflict. I ask Ms McNamee about this because that is the essence of how we can work to bring people together. People can see that those on both sides are impacted by the same issues, such as housing, loss of jobs. Mental health issues are significant, but equally significant are addiction problems because of the intergenerational trauma.

How is all of that managed? How can we expand on that? Would that be something which would arise from a policy point of view where we could bring people together? I hope this makes sense.