Dr. Stephen Farry:

We met briefly on the fringes of the talks in 1998. I was a junior staff member at that time. I want to ask Ms O'Donnell about her reflections on two different aspects of what has happened over the intervening 25 years. First, I ask her to share her views on the potential need for reform of the institutions. We have seen the growth of the centre ground in Northern Ireland, primarily with my own party but also the Green Party, People Before Profit and previously the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition. Is the system, with its unionist-nationalist designation, too inflexible to take account of those demographic and electoral changes? I ask this question in the context of the vetoes which were used in the past few years to block the Assembly and Executive from functioning.

In her opening remarks, Ms O’Donnell referred to the important angles around reconciliation being built into the agreement. While we have undoubtedly seen much progress in that regard, does she feel that this has gone far enough? Should we be slightly disappointed that we have not gone further in some aspects of reconciliation in the intervening quarter of a century?