Professor Jonathan Tonge:

I concur with those sentiments that the civic forum should not have been allowed to have been abolished because it was in the Good Friday Agreement. You had this 60-strong composition to it. It was unfairly criticised by people who said this was the unelected and unelectable when it was actually a pretty positive body. It should not have been allowed to disappear. As I said earlier, citizens' assemblies ultimately are better ways of resolving issues than a permanent civic forum but there is a place for both. A civic forum ought to be reconstituted and that provision for one or two citizens' assemblies per year ought to be enacted.

It is not listed in the priorities of New Decade, New Approach and when this will be enacted is open to question. I hope it is sooner rather than later. It would be a sign of progress. The point that was made by Deputy Mac Lochlainn earlier is it is not a threat to the elected individuals. These are not surrogates or substitutes for democratically-elected representatives. They are complementary to them. That is the way these bodies should be conceived.