Ms Eileen Weir:

I thank the Irish Government and in particular the Department of Foreign Affairs, which has invested in our peace process and still does to this day. I am funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs. I got a year of funding from it when nobody else would fund me. The Irish Government does its bit in financially supporting the work that happens at grassroots level and in peace building. I have a lot of time for it because it understands. It invests more money into the peace process and those hard-to-reach groups than we get from the UK Government. We all used to be able to be funded. We have an organisation trying to deal with 20 funders and it is no joke. We have 20 financial reports, 20 this and that, and it makes our work a lot harder while making the funders' work a lot harder also. When we are only getting year to year budgets, they are doing the same work year after year. We are reported out of our minds and if we had done half of the things that our Government does, we would not be in the job and we would not get a handshake when we are not voted in. We just walk out with our end salary and that is the end of the day, but this is not about us; it is about the grassroots.

I thank the Department of Foreign Affairs for the time and money that it has invested, in particular at grassroots level, right across the province. It does not go into just one area. It seems to understand the issues that we are facing at grassroots level. Just get your finger out with the bill of rights; that is all. We need something moving because it is another safeguard, particularly for women and children. We need better education systems and not something that was done 100 years ago. Our curriculum does not match what is needed. I hear this from head teachers, not from parents. Our education system is set up to educate those who are clever and a lot of our young people are not getting the time spent on them. They can become clever; you are not born stupid. Everyone can become clever if the proper systems are there to educate them better.