Mr. Trevor Lunn:

If it is okay with Reverend Karen, I will reply first. I thank the Senator for those comments. As far as the various agreements are concerned, it is important to remember not everybody signed all the agreements. The DUP did not sign the Good Friday Agreement. The guy who is liable to become its leader, in particular, walked away from the Ulster Unionist Party at that time and joined the DUP. The Ulster Unionist Party has told us recently it did not sign the New Decade, New Approach agreement. It was news to me but apparently it did not sign it and let us bear in mind that agreement has not been ratified yet. The St. Andrews Agreement was so inconclusive and vague and did what most agreements do, which is leave things open such as the Irish language legislation, which was approved by the British Government but not by the Stormont Assembly.

Moving on to the Senator’s question about the parliamentary activity on Lanark Way, as I said in my opening statement, that activity has been relatively minor so far but that is not to say it could not become much worse, but I question whether there is an appetite for it. I can tell the Senator that in Lisburn, in my area, a loyalist protest was called on Saturday night which happened to coincide with the people coming out of mass just down the street on Chapel Hill. Nobody turned up for the protest. There was an effort by leading loyalists in Lisburn, as far as I understand, to try to play it down. No bands turned up, nobody turned up to riot and the main activity there was the police, not protestors. Nothing happened. If we look across the country, I know these things happened in Belfast and a wee bit in Portadown and Carrickfergus, obviously, but most of the country remained quiet. If we go about this the right way in a controlled manner, and I agree with the Senator it will not happen overnight and that it will take years, but the appetite is there across our population to move things forward and not move them backwards. I will leave it at that.