Mr. Mickey Brady:

I thank Dr. Mitchell for her presentation. Mixtures were mentioned earlier and I am an eclectic mix myself. I have Presbyterian and Church of Ireland grandparents on the paternal and maternal sides.

I wonder about the issue of welfare. My background is in welfare rights which I used to deal with on a daily basis. I deal with people from the Protestant unionist community. One of the striking things is that our communities have so much more in common than they realise. Dr. Ciara Fitzpatrick and a professor from Cork gave a presentation to the committee a number of months ago. Their argument was that in a new Ireland following reunification or whatever, we could start from scratch and have a welfare system that would be the envy of Europe. That is something in which the people I deal with on a daily basis are much more interested. People talk about the cost-of-living crisis. There has always been cost-of-living crisis. It is has just got a lot worse with heating costs, food costs and all of that.

I will address the issue of prioritising in terms of both communities.

Approximately 12 years ago, in Rev. Mervyn Gibson's church, I gave a presentation on the welfare cuts . People from the community - not politicians but people from the loyalist communities - were very interested in what was being said about the cuts and how they would affect them. It struck me that they would affect their community as much as the community I represent. Yet a couple of weeks later the flag protest happened and everything went down the tubes. It is really a matter of prioritising in terms of how our communities are affected. Would Dr. Mitchell agree with that?