Mr. Thomas McCann:

The SAOL project and a number of others were involved in getting the stories of ordinary people from ordinary communities involved. Those stories need to be heard by this committee. The stories of disadvantaged communities, of Travellers and others need to be allowed in because statistics can numb us to the reality of people's lives in places like this. It is important.

There are three areas where change is needed. The first is structural change, which has already been mentioned, in terms of systemic racism, inequality, exclusion, poverty and the lack of educational opportunity in disadvantaged communities, including Traveller communities. We need proper investment in communities in terms of infrastructure and sports facilities, as was said. We also need proper infrastructure in youth services. The involvement of communities as stakeholders in the process is important, because a lot of reports and strategies are developed but do not have any weight because, a lot of the time, the people in the communities are not seen as stakeholders in the process and there is no proper investment. Those are the three areas that need to be looked at. If they are combined and there is collaboration between the services, the State and the communities, we can begin to move things on. Those are certainly what I see as the key issues.