Joe O'Toole (Independent)

That is what we need to try to do. Children are born in a Roman Catholic hospital, live in a Roman Catholic housing estate and go to a Roman Catholic school and, after being looked after in a Roman Catholic hospital are buried in a Roman Catholic graveyard. It is the same on the other side. Why can the children of this island not be educated together and follow a common curriculum in their schools? Why can the sash and the shamrock not be in the same history programme? Why can we not celebrate our differences and recognise the importance of such events as the Battle of the Boyne? It is because there is no more stomach for it in the South than in the North. We cannot even have an all-Ireland policy for the Irish language. Instead a partitionist approach exists to which Sinn Féin and the Catholic Church subscribe. The political establishment adopts the same stance. Somebody needs to take the courageous step of bringing these issues together. We should begin with what young people learn in schools.