Dr. Gary Mason:

I will dip in and out of the comments. Older clergy would often say to me that the churches were full in the 1950s and 1960s as if that was something to be proud of. I often tell them their gift to my generation was a sectarian war. I want to ask them what they were doing in the 1950s and 1960s, as people allegedly of faith, to address sectarianism. There was no prophetic stance by the Catholic or Protestant churches to address sectarianism.

I have said before and I am quite happy to say publicly that what Unionism did post-partition was fundamentally wrong. It was a justice issue. As a person of faith I believe in equal rights, justice and the bill of rights, as Ms Gildernew said. The problem is how both communities of faith - what I call toxic faith - have interpreted scripture in a sectarian rather than an inclusive way. That is something with which the churches still have not gotten to grips.

Sometimes we see peace processes as economically driven. There is a perception that if a wee lad living on the Shankill Road or the Falls Road gets a job everything will be okay.

I am an economic animal, as are Professor McBride and Ms Gildernew. We all have an economic component, but I also have a psychological and a pastoral component. The failure to recognise that dimension has been the massive weakness of the peace process. There is no sense, for example, in me giving an ex-member of the UVF living on the Newtownards Road a job and saying everything will be okay. The reality is that many people in that situation, in their relationship with their partner or wife and their children, have learned to deal with difference through verbal or physical violence. As Professor McBride observed, there are some who have never been taught another narrative, whereby one deals with difference through conversation, dialogue and debate. For many, there is an unreconstructed narrative in their psychology which has not been addressed and has not changed. One sees this in the way things spill out after parades. I attended a stag night some weeks ago and my wife decided to do something on the same night on the Newtownards Road. When I heard that a parade was taking place there, I telephoned to advise her to stay where she was until I could collect her. At 10 p.m. people were urinating, vomiting and fighting in the street. The language used on such occasions is appalling, yet children are there observing all of it. Much of that behaviour is coming from the post-Troubles generation. The reality is that Northern Ireland is, at times, an aggressive society in which we deal with difference through physical or verbal abuse.

We can see parallels in other post-conflict situations throughout the world. South Africa, for instance, is a mess. I have spoken about this with Peter Storey who was one of the two key church figures, together with Desmond Tutu, during the conflict in that country. We have all heard about the heavy alcohol abuse, rapes and violence in the townships. Reference has been made to the prophetic observation that although we have been good at ending at the war, we are not good at building the peace. Many of these post-conflict situations are exactly the same. The Balkans area, just like Northern Ireland, is still a deeply divided society. In South Africa black people generally have not seen a sufficient peace dividend. Apartheid may have ended, but, economically, the country is still pretty much a wasteland for many.

Committees such as this have a key role in ensuring we are not storing up problems for future generations in Northern Ireland. Even I was stunned by the reaction to the flag issue and I have been doing this stuff for 25 years. It was a very difficult week, as several people in this room, including the Acting Chairman, know. I negotiated with the UVF for a solid week. It took 50 hours to bring the valid aspects of these protests to an end and get people over the line. Many of those involved are of the generation to which Professor McBride referred. As I said, we must consider the pastoral and psychological aspects. A book I often recommend to couples before they have children is called The Power of a Parent's Words. Everybody in this room will know what I am saying. A colleague told me recently that a young man he was counselling still remembered his father's words to him as a child that he was "pathetic, pathetic, pathetic". This successful businessman aged 38 years, with a 7 series BMW and a life that seems to be going superbly still hears his father telling him he is "pathetic, pathetic, pathetic". How we tell our stories and what we say to the other side is a crucial aspect of reconciliation efforts.

What then is the way forward? What I propose is that we bring together a number of senior republicans and loyalists, with people like Professor McBride and several key church people, for discussions on how we might get to grips with these problems. Mr. Martin McGuinness recently threw out a challenge for that type of engagement. There were no loyalists at the Sinn Féin conference and I ended up speaking on their behalf in some respects, in so far as I gave my reading of the temperature within that community. There must be dialogue, of that there is no question. There is a chasm between loyalism and republicanism at this time. I am not disputing Deputy Martin Ferris's observation that there are sometimes good relationships on the ground, but the bottom line is that the two communities are further apart now than they were two or three years ago. We must address that issue.