Maurice Hayes (Independent)

I too am grateful to the Leader for arranging the debate and to the other leaders for allowing me to participate in it.

It is difficult that we are not totally informed of what is going on. We must deal with what we see, the public press and what we can infer from people's body language. None of us wishes to make a delicate situation more difficult to resolve. Senator Dardis asked us to remember the past, and I too remember. When we look back, we must marvel at how far we have come, and that is particularly true in Northern Ireland. I pay tribute to those on all sides who helped bring that about. However, having gained so much, what a tragedy it would be to lose any of that progress.

I do not want to sound patronising. It is not a question of applying deadlines or anything else, but there is a sense that completion should be achieved now. We must ask ourselves where the optimism is that was there last week. Where was it when Northern Ireland was being paraded as a template for conflict resolution around the world?

I ask people on all sides to recognise their own work in constructing the process and their responsibility to the process itself above other requirements. People must face up to the logic of their own position. Yesterday morning I was on the Shankill Road in Belfast among some people whom one might not immediately recognise as pillars of the democratic process. However, they were saying almost the same thing as Senator Dardis. They wanted to know that the war was over so that they could get on with politics and the arrangement of life.