Dr. Stephen Farry:

Good morning, everyone. I too welcome the paper from ICTU on financing in Northern Ireland. It was a very useful contribution to the ongoing debate and pressure for change in that respect. I wanted to raise a few issues. Hopefully our witnesses can pick those up as appropriate. Going back to some of the comments Owen Reidy made about the nature of employment relations in Northern Ireland and the approach of government, one of the big things we managed to do in 2015 was to reject the draconian anti-trade union legislation at that stage. We are the only part of the UK to which that does not apply. Whenever we were looking at some of the employment law changes in the early 2010s, we built up an informal social partnership model between both business and trade unions to try to reach a consensus on how we would manage changes to employment law. I appreciate that Mr. Owen Reidy, who has left, was keen to see the emergence of some form of social partnership model in Northern Ireland.

I wanted to ask our witnesses to reflect on the current situation in the South with engagement between business, trade unions and the Government. Is it good or bad? What lessons could we learn in Northern Ireland with regard to any future developments we may make in that respect, if and when we get our institutions restored?

On the issue of workers' rights, it would be useful to talk a little through the architecture under the protocol or Windsor Framework in that regard, the difference between those rights that are protected through the direct application of regulation or directives continuing under the Windsor Framework exclusive to Northern Ireland, and the wider dangers and problems relating to the looser protections under Article 2 of the protocol and the intersection with the retained EU law, albeit slightly watered down. To what extent is that still a threat to employment rights in Northern Ireland?

On the issue of education, I too approach these issues relating to the future of the island on a non-prejudiced basis, but I happen to take part in debates. In education, it strikes me that the two systems in Northern Ireland and the South are radically different in a number of areas. I would be interested to hear people's views on how difficult it will be to overcome them to create a single system, if we ever get to that stage over the coming years.