We have agreed our rotation of speakers as we continue our meetings with architects of the Good Friday Agreement project. We will continue to meet a range of people involved in the negotiations, both politicians and officials. On behalf of the committee, I welcome Lord John Alderdice to the meeting and thank him for attending. Lord Alderdice played a significant role in all of the talks between the political parties and the British and Irish Governments in the run-up to the Good Friday Agreement. He was leader of the Alliance Party from 1987 to 1998, the first Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly from 1998 to 2004 and continues to be very much involved in peace and reconciliation work. Lord Alderdice is very welcome.
Architects of the Good Friday Agreement (Resumed): Lord Alderdice
Lord Alderdice
I thank the Chair.
I will read the statutory declaration regarding parliamentary privilege and explain some limitations in regard to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to any other person. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. However witnesses and participants who give evidence from a location outside the parliamentary precincts are asked to note that they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts does and may consider it appropriate therefore to take legal advice on this matter.
Witnesses are also asked to note that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the directions given by the Chair and the practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to that person or entity.
Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against any person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.
I now call Lord Alderdice to make his opening statement.
Lord Alderdice
I thank the Cathaoirleach. It is good to join the committee today. I was asked to reflect on my experiences leading up to the Good Friday Agreement, GFA, in about five minutes or so. Given that I was involved in that process for about 11 years, it is a challenge that all politicians resile from. It is much more difficult to make a short intervention than a long one but I shall do my best.
As a teenager I was puzzled by why my community appeared to behave in a self-destructive way. Political science said that people acted in their own rational best self-interest, but this seemed to be contradicted by the evidence I saw around me. To better understand harmful, non-rational community attitudes, I trained in psychoanalytical psychiatry and took those ideas into political life, becoming the leader of the Alliance Party in 1987 at the age of 32. The Belfast Telegraph assessment was that I was a decent chap but who would want such an impossible job? It could have added impossible "unpaid" job. I set up a group of the brightest of the "young Turks" in the party and in 1988 we published Governing with Consent, a document I have here, which was basically a restatement of policies of power-sharing, North-South co-operation and Northern Ireland remaining within the United Kingdom for as long as the people of the North wanted it.
My own commitment was to work to end the violence and the received wisdom was that the violent groups would not negotiate realistically but a compromise between the main constitutional parties in Northern Ireland would marginalise extremists, who could be dealt with by a more united community. I engaged with the various political and civil society leaders in Northern Ireland and with Margaret Thatcher and successive British Prime Ministers, as well as Charles Haughey and those who succeeded him as Taoiseach. John Hume was also working to develop a talks process but although we got it under way, it moved very slowly and did not stop the violence. When we seemed particularly stuck the four Northern Ireland party leaders would meet alone without British or Irish Governments, civil servants, advisers or anyone else.
I remember at one such meeting John Hume said to the three of us, “I don’t believe we’re going to get anywhere without me engaging with the IRA.". I will always remember looking at Jim Molyneaux sitting on my right. The blood drained from his face, and he said, “Well that’s it, there’s no hope then.". I went home downhearted that power-sharing had been dealt a mortal blow. What could I do? I knew John well enough to realise that he would not easily be persuaded to change his mind, so we would have to test his idea to destruction. We could continue to argue about it politically, but we were going to have to go along with him and see what happened. This required a fundamentally different political analysis, which went as follows. You can have a political process without engaging with the violent groups, but you cannot have a peace process without them since you need to persuade them to give up violence. They will not abandon their political dreams and so they need to be persuaded that the non-violent democratic political path is a better way of achieving them. This was the road that led to the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement.
There is little in the agreement that had not been prefigured in Governing with Consent or any number of other documents over the years. The difference was the understanding that the problem was not a failed political system but disturbed historical relationships between the various communities. We identified the three key sets of relationships as being between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland, between North and South and between Britain and Ireland. The peace process required three strands that would involve the political representatives of those three sets of relationships and the outcome was three sets of interlocking institutions, the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly, the North-South executive bodies and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Council.
The Good Friday Agreement was however a divergent agreement. Unionists agreed to it on the basis that it was a settlement through which the IRA would give up violence in return for guaranteed nationalist participation in the government of Northern Ireland at the highest level. Nationalists saw it as another step in a process that would lead ultimately to a united Ireland. This divergent understanding did not need to be a problem if there was a continued focus on building the three sets of relationships, but that is not what happened. In the talks process, I had proposed that the Northern Ireland Executive should be formed by a coalition that was required to reach 67% support in the Assembly. In Governing with Consent we had actually said 70%. In the talks our proposal was two thirds. This was a way of promoting cross-community engagement. It seemed to me that John Hume’s proposal, which was the other main proposal of a majority of unionists, majority of nationalists and majority of the whole was doomed to deepen polarisation. I also believed that prisoner releases should be predicated on dealing with the weapons, a demonstration of their commitment to democracy. However, I lost the argument on both issues and both came back to bite us.
When the Good Friday Agreement did not have the mechanisms to ensure the implementation of the latter issue, the British and Irish Governments put the Independent Monitoring Commission in place, and we spent seven years working, with some success, on getting rid of the weapons and the paramilitary organisations. However, that still left the vulnerability to political polarisation unless there was a constant focus on the three sets of relationships, and that did not happen. For years the British-Irish Intergovernmental Council did not meet at the highest levels, leading to problems on Northern Ireland, but also contributing to the Brexit problem. A new generation of Northern Ireland politicians also failed to understand that the unionist-nationalist and North-South relationships needed to be constantly nourished through respect and engagement. Now all three sets of relationships are in poor shape.
Twenty-five years on, the context has also changed. Instead of joint EU membership facilitating British-Irish relations, the EU now backs Ireland against the post-Brexit UK.
Similarly, the United States, which has long-standing but different relationships with Britain and Ireland, is now siding with one against the other on this issue. In addition, there are profound post-Brexit changes in political demography and all of this requires a recasting of our understanding of the three sets of relationships. The peace process, in my view, is long over and we are now in a complex political process which requires a greater degree of commitment, effort and creativity than we have seen for some time. I thank the Cathaoirleach.
Thank you for your analysis. Certainly, there were some very thought-provoking insights into how you managed the process, as well as your commentary on it today. We will rotate our speakers between the different parties. The rotation we have agreed is basically 15 minutes. We have agreed Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, SDLP, Alliance, the Green Party and then Labour and independents. Each party selects its own speakers. Ms Gildernew, you have 15 minutes.
Ms Michelle Gildernew
Go raibh maith agat a Chathaoirligh. Cuirim fáilte roimh Lord Alderdice. I do not know if he remembers, but 21 years ago he and I had a meeting to talk about putting breastfeeding facilities into Stormont. I was then expecting my eldest child; he is now expecting his first child. The baby is due within the week, so it is lovely to see Lord Alderdice this week. It goes to show the history that is there between us.
Lord Alderdice
Best wishes and congratulations to Ms Gildernew for the next generation of arrivals.
Ms Michelle Gildernew
They are likely to be equally as troublesome as the generations previous. It is great to see Lord Alderdice again. I thought he did very well to be so succinct. I know him well enough to say being succinct would not be his strong point, but he got a lot in within five minutes.
At the beginning of his comments, Lord Alderdice mentioned conversations he had with Jim Molyneaux, John Hume and others. Around that time, Jim Molyneaux described the Good Friday Agreement as the most destabilising thing that had happened in the North. Lord Alderdice also spoke about cross-community engagement and constantly nourishing those relationships. I think that is why, some 25 years on from the Good Friday Agreement, there are still big chunks that have not been implemented. We still do not have a bill of rights, the civic forum or the all-Ireland civic assembly that was discussed. The brakes have been on all-Ireland co-operation for decades. Strand one, as Lord Alderdice is aware, is not operating at the moment but strand two has been non-operational for a lot longer, starting when unionists walked away from those arrangements. To be honest, the only thing that there is any kind of life left in now is strand three.
I would like to ask about that destabilisation Jim Molyneaux talked about. Lord Alderdice spoke about looking for cross-community engagement and the 70%-odd. We have put that to bed; it is 50% plus one. Does Lord Alderdice recognise now why that is so important? There has been, to use Lord Alderdice's term, a lack of constant nourishment from unionism. I have come through this. I grew up throughout this process. I sometimes feel despair. I know we do excellent work and there are many people within civic unionism who are very pragmatic, who understand what it is like to live beside the Border and were not in favour of Brexit and of us coming out of the EU. Those people recognise the difficulties and challenges around us sharing a landmass with 26 counties that are within the EU and us being outside of that.
Political unionism has failed in that constant nourishment role. I would like to get Lord Alderdice's thoughts on that. I presume that, 25 years ago, he would have thought, like we did, that we would have had a border poll, that we would have been further down the list of all-Ireland co-operation and we would have been able to engage at a level where it became easier and more natural. The polarisation that he spoke about seems to have been fed to a certain extent by political unionism. Brexit has been very damaging for everybody on the island of Ireland, whatever your background is or wherever you come from. How does Lord Alderdice see the past 25 years? How have they shaped up? Would he share the assessment that there could have been a little more generosity of spirit and more working together, had we been able to do with political unionism what we have been able to do with civic unionism? I have been there. I have worked on committees. I have been on the Executive. I have worked really well with people across the political spectrum but that lack of generosity or willingness to discuss the future seems to be why we are stuck in this particular situation now, where strands one and two are de facto parked. I hope they are only parked. How long can we keep breathing life into those institutions?
Lord Alderdice
I thank Ms Gildernew. She has mentioned quite a number of important things. I may be wrong but my memory of it - and that is getting a bit more faulty as the years go on - is that Jim Molyneaux was describing the IRA ceasefire or cessation as the most destabilising thing, rather than the Good Friday Agreement itself. I think the reason for that was, whenever the violence was going on, you kind of knew where the enemy was, in his terms. Once that stopped, I think he realised that once republicanism moved away from depending on physical force and moved towards depending on the mandate, that did to some degree really change and eventually threaten the perspective that he would have held to in those days.
After 25 years, things have changed. I will say a little about what I think has changed. Ms Gildernew is quite right in that 25 years ago, I certainly believed that we would be a lot further along the road of collaboration with each other. For some time, it looked pretty good when Ian Paisley of the DUP was leader and Martin McGuinness was deputy First Minister and then, subsequently, with Peter Robinson replacing Ian Paisley. It was looking reasonably promising at that time. I would not overstate it; there were still all sorts of problems but there was at least a degree of optimism. Ms Gildernew, while she continues to look very young, is to some degree part of a previous generation that understood what the violence was like, how it adversely affected all sides of the community, and so on.
As the next generation came along and the longer there was a degree of "peace", if we use that word, the more people kind of took it for granted and second, the more the relationships diverged. Ms Gildernew mentioned civic unionism, as distinct from political unionism. Certainly, within political unionism, there was an increasing fear that ultimately, they were going to lose. It was not just a question of demography being a problem for them. I think they began to feel, and frankly, given that I have been over at the House of Lords for 25 years or more, I have seen a change in the relationship between politicians in London, on the British side if you like, and politicians in Northern Ireland. The sense of attachment to Northern Ireland and its people and institutions is not the same as it was 25 or 30 years ago. There are all sorts of interesting reasons for that but they are not reversible. I do not believe that political games being played with the protocol and so on represent a real deep sense of attachment and interest, as far as politicians on this side of the water are concerned, towards Northern Ireland or unionists. I think unionists realised that things are not going in the right direction. You might well say, with good reason, that if unionists feel that, surely the thing to do is to make a good relationship with the people they are going to be spending the whole of the future with. That is a completely rational position to take but one of the things that led me into my own approach to politics was a realisation that people frequently did not behave in their own rational best interests.
Even over the Brexit question, many of us were saying to people in the DUP, and indeed the Ulster Unionists, who did change their position, "for goodness' sake, do not vote for Brexit. It is not in your best interests at all". They did not listen and we know the outcome of that. There are all sorts of ramifications from it. The problem is that the three sets of relationships have not been attended to or nourished in the way that they could have been. It is important also to note that people in Northern Ireland and in other places too have long memories. They have long memories regarding historic hurts and difficulties.
Horrible things happened on all sides and it is quite difficult to let go of those. That was one of the things we tried to do and we were making some progress on it at the start but that has stalled, as Ms Gildernew described the institutions having stalled.
It is not impossible to get some of these things back together again. If the British and Irish Governments can find a way of working together to help, not use it against each other in some kind of political game but genuinely help, that would be most helpful because we must remember the Good Friday Agreement, and the Anglo-Irish Agreement before that, came about because the two Governments were the driving force that held things together. Insofar as they are not doing that in strand three or in any other context, that is unhelpful and we would both probably agree it is important that the two Governments work together to try to take us forward.
Ms Michelle Gildernew
That is very helpful and I agree that much more could be done. The two Governments are co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement we would like to see a more hands-on approach. Is Lord Alderdice part of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference?
Lord Alderdice
No, I am not involved in it. Many mechanisms exist that could be used and they are not being capitalised on in the way they could and should be. It is also probably useful to say that the situation has changed, as I mentioned. The political demography has changed and the relationships have changed because the UK is not in the European Union any more. Frankly, that means the political trajectory in the medium to long term is probably more encouraging to nationalists and republicans than to unionists and loyalists. Unionists and loyalists feel, as they are right to feel, that the trajectory for politics in the future is less favourable to them and more favourable to colleagues like Ms Gildernew.
Ms Michelle Gildernew
I came this morning from an event in Dungannon at which we discussed the absence of European Structural Funds, ESF, and the fact that 17,000 people have so far benefited from ESF money. That money has been transformative in working class communities across the board, unionist and nationalist. Brexit was a game changer for many young people. It was the conduit through which they no longer have the same hang-ups that previous generations had and they see their future within Europe and in a unified Ireland. Does Lord Alderdice share that view?
Lord Alderdice
There is truth in what Ms Gildernew says but Brexit does not stand on its own. It also represents a change in the attitudes of people in England, and in the Conservative Party in particular, and the kinds of things that are said and done and so on. I mentioned that people in England are increasingly divorced or separated in relationship terms from Northern Ireland. Many people in Northern Ireland feel increasingly little identification with the current British Government and the kinds of attitudes that are seen there. An openness to looking for other sets of relationships is evident. I agree with Ms Gildernew. The way we finished up in the Good Friday Agreement was that if a border poll was held and people in the North decided they wanted to be part of a united Ireland, there would not be a question of having to apply for membership of the EU. Northern Ireland would automatically become part of a united Ireland and part of the EU. As Ms Gildernew said earlier, that is 50% plus one. It is not any other weighted majority. There are other cases for weighted majorities in the formation of the executive that did not pass, as I said, but in respect of a border poll or a referendum, it should be 50% plus one.
Ms Michelle Gildernew
Before we move on to the next speaker, does Lord Alderdice have a message or anything he would like to say to either the Irish Government, which is represented here, or indeed to political unionism because it is in a difficult position as regards its future? I can understand that, but at the same time we want a future for the next generations. At the event on Saturday, Karen Sethuraman spoke very well about the future and what it means for her children and grandchildren. Does Lord Alderdice have anything he wants to say to the leaders of political unionism?
Lord Alderdice
First, the two Governments have a huge responsibility. They have understandably been somewhat preoccupied with the Brexit problems which are not unrelated, but they have a fundamental responsibility for the Good Friday Agreement process. Not that it is a question of every single item in the Good Friday Agreement being completely unchangeable as we move forward. Some bits of it will have to change because the realities and contexts have changed, but they need to be working together on this and not fighting and feuding.
Second, as far as political unionism is concerned, both unionism and nationalism must pay attention to the relationship between them. Some unionists will probably leave if we move towards a united Ireland, but for those people who want to stay in Ireland, which is the overwhelming majority of both unionists and nationalists, it is about finding a way of getting on with one another. All sides have to work pretty hard at that. I hope political unionism in particular finds a way of addressing that in a more serious way. It is natural for people to fight against a future they do not want to see, but sometimes that is not in their best interests. They need to address the reality as it develops. We all need to do that because otherwise we end up with the worst of all possible worlds rather than the best world we can create.
As I young boy growing up, I saw Lord Alderdice many times on media, television, etc. Of the political leaders down through the years, he remains very fresh. He must have some secret he might share with us, maybe offline.
Lord Alderdice
It is the House of Lords.
On a more serious note, I thank Lord Alderdice for his contribution. This is fascinating work because we need to realise what was achieved in the Good Friday Agreement. Moreover, we need to get a greater understanding of how we came to that point of getting agreement across the religious divide in the final moments and, in so doing, learn the lessons from the past that might help us to move forward. Lord Alderdice has been very helpful in that regard thus far.
Towards the end of his presentation, Lord Alderdice referred to the EU and the US backing Ireland. I will not get into the politics of that today. I have a different opinion. I certainly feel the UK has been quite reckless in its approach and it has taken positions that are contrary to previous agreements it made. It is very hard to deal with political arrangements in that context.
One of the major issues since the Good Friday Agreement relates to dealing with issues of the past and legacy issues. Lord Alderdice touched on this. How big a factor are those issues in resolving the divide in Northern Ireland? Moreover, at the time of the Good Friday Agreement, were they on the table? Did discussions take place on them or were they too hot to handle? What is Lord Alderdice's memory of dealing with them at that time?
Lord Alderdice
I am not sure my beard is as black as it was in those early days.
First, let me make clear that when I speak about the difference in the relations with the EU and US, I do not in any way suggest the British Government has not been responsible for the worsening of relationships because it clearly has. I am just making an observation that the relationships are different and they are not so evenly balanced.
The British Government has, in a way, made much the greatest contribution to that, although sometimes the EU, understandably, gets frustrated and digs its heels in. However understandable that is, it is probably not the best way of dealing with the problem. That is moving. Some Brussels leaders, and indeed, President Macron from France have been saying things both the content and the nuance of which have been extremely thoughtful and helpful. I hope we can move forward on that kind of basis.
The Senator mentioned the legacy of the past. The truth is, although it was mentioned in the talks, it was not as much of a focus as perhaps it ought to have been. In the Colombian peace agreement, for example, one of the first Bills passed in response to that was about the victims. That is not to say that it was very good legislation or that it resolved their problems, but at least it showed where it was in their priorities. In retrospect, the issues of the victims were mentioned, but they did not necessarily have the priority that they might have had. That is one element of legacy.
It is not just the people who were directly harmed who are part of the legacy; it is the political and cultural remnants of that. People look at their community, another community or other communities and they remember difficult and unpleasant things that happened for them in the past and they find it difficult to forget them. They find it very difficult to let go of them. When we had the Good Friday Agreement, there was at that time a degree of momentum that we felt was going to carry us forward beyond a lot of these bad, difficult feelings, because of these new relationships that were being developed. In truth, at that time, there was a good prospect of that. The more the momentum stalled, the more people began to feel that they were not being very well treated by each other at a political or public level and the more people went back to remembering all the difficult things that had happened. I could even see it in the talks process where, when things were going well, people were a bit more optimistic. When things got a bit more difficult, you could hear people say, "I knew it, they were never interested anyway", or "they were always agin us". Once you get the momentum up again, that ought to take people beyond it.
It is not so much that the legacy of the past is one of the enormous hurdles that has to be overcome. When you focus too much on it, it makes things worse. The lack of momentum and progress is a symptom of the problem in the relationships. I could see in dealing with individual people as a psychiatrist in clinical practice in the old days, or at a community level, that by focusing too much on the past, the hurt and the difficulties, you can get stuck in it. There is not always a way out that enables you to let go. It is a very difficult, sensitive issue. If we make more progress on the political front and provide the kind of counselling and care for individuals they need and deserve, that holds out some possibilities.
The other final warning is one I made many years ago. Some people say, "The generation that was damaged as victims will die and that will be it". It will not. One of the things we know in working with trauma is that it is a trans-generational problem. It gets passed on. The consequences get passed on, and the consequences that are passed on may become de-linked from what actually happened. Where somebody shows symptoms or difficulties and they remember what happened and can speak about is one thing. With the next generation, they sometimes do not realise why they are in the problems they are in, nor do those who are working with them. That can be even more problematic. We should remember, at an individual level at least, and at a community level to some extent, that there is a trans-generational component to this, which is not going to go away easily.
Like the other contributors, I welcome Lord Alderdice to the committee and compliment him on his work over the years in different roles both in Stormont and Westminster. On the final point that Senator Blaney made and Lord Alderdice responded to regarding legacy issues, the British Government has united all political parties in Northern Ireland, as well as all civic groups and all public opinion in our State as well - on its absolutely deplorable proposals that step back to the worst possible days. One would expect better from a parliamentary democracy than to come up with a system that would literally give some people the right to grant themselves immunity for horrific deeds, whether they were paramilitaries or state forces. It is absolutely reprehensible.
Lord Alderdice mentioned trauma being trans- or inter-generational. We had a very good engagement with the WAVE Trauma Centre and that was the point the made to us all regarding the second and third generations where there has been no justice. For example, the other day Oliver McVeigh commenting on the search under way in Bragan Bog in County Monaghan for his late brother, Columba, made the point that they are not just out for vengeance but they are out to get a body restored and have a Christian burial. Those types of comments and those people show great grace and dignity in dealing with difficult situations.
In every parliamentary democracy, the system has its defects and faults - our own does too. Since the Brexit debate started, even before the referendum in 2016, both Houses of the Oireachtas and all of the committees devoted enormous time to working on the Brexit issue. We had engagement every day of the week with parliamentarians from Britain and other countries in Europe who wanted to hear our viewpoints on Brexit and the difficulties it would cause if Britain exited the EU. Our parliamentary democracy, including the Dáil and Seanad, worked well in that respect in support of the Government. In that debate, there was never antagonism from the Irish side towards the British side. We were outlining our concerns very cogently and quite rightly and those concerns have come to pass. It is very important in that respect. Of course, many parliamentarians from Westminster shared the same view as us.
Ms Gildernew mentioned the lack of a civic forum. That was within the competence of Stormont, to my recollection. I recall speaking to some of the people who participated in the short-lived one, from trade unions and other civic bodies, who found the workings of it very beneficial. It is a shame it has not been re-established in a different format to give civic society additional voices apart from the political representation they have.
With regard to winning support for the political institutions and politics in general, is a greater focus needed from both Stormont and Westminster on trying to improve the lot of many people in the disadvantaged communities. If we are to put an end to all types of violence, we need to ensure that people have the opportunity to get a good education, training and skills and go on to gain full employment. That is the best way to engage people in a democracy and in the political process. I thank Lord Alderdice.
Lord Alderdice
I will pick up on one or two of the important things the Deputy said. It is important to realise, as far as engagement with institutions in the United Kingdom, particularly at Westminster, goes, that it is a deeply divided country and it is deeply divided on the issue of Europe. It has been for years. When you are engaging with those parliamentarians who wish to engage on this question - there were quite a lot who did not want to engage - you probably find yourself engaging with people who are of a relatively similar disposition. One of the problems in Northern Ireland over many years is a deeply divided community and getting everybody to engage is really quite challenging and difficult. In Ireland, as a whole, an overwhelming majority of people want to remain within the EU. That was not the case in England or Wales. That was the case in Northern Ireland and Scotland. The divisions this has opened up are deep, profound, historical, cultural and political. What has happened is tragic, but it is important to understand that you are dealing with a different thing when you are dealing with the United Kingdom, which is so divided on the issue, than dealing with it in Ireland, where there is, if not unanimity, then overwhelming support for the particular issue the Deputy is describing.
Finding ways of engaging is difficult.
On the question of the importance of socioeconomic benefits and development and so on, of course there is a moral imperative to do this as well as a general socioeconomic and political imperative to do it. However, that will not solve the problem. People have deep senses of identity and allegiance that are not resolved or dealt with. I remember we did some work, for example, with people in the Palestinian authority. We told them they would not get the right of return but they would get money and asked how they felt about that. They were very angry. Then we told them they would not get the right of return but they would get a shedload of money and asked them what they thought. They expressed even greater anger. This is because the suggestion is that people's principles, their fundamental identity, allegiance and convictions, are purchasable, and that does not win people around. It only makes them angry. The issue was not just to pile loads of money into west Belfast. That was done by the Thatcher Government. It did not make any positive difference to the politics at all, nor could it have been expected to because people there had some fundamental identifications and allegiances which they were not going to allow to be bought off. Sometimes the things that would potentially work in a peaceful, stable society where it was largely based on socioeconomic issues may not necessarily bring the results we want to see on the politically divisive issues of identity and allegiance. We have to work in other ways to try to achieve this. Can it be done? Yes, of course it can be done. Is it easy? No, it is not easy at all.
When we come to the question of whether the British Government is more to blame than the Irish Government, there is a danger we get into the sort of blame game I remember listening to in Northern Ireland for a long time and it did not get us terribly far. We have to say the relationship is not very good, whoever is making whatever contribution to it, and let us find a way of getting beyond that. I am not too pessimistic about that in the medium term. We are going through difficult stages but I can begin to see we are moving to a potentially better place. On whether the new British Prime Minister will achieve that, she has a peace process to engage in within the Conservative Party before she engages in one with everybody else, but that may not be a long-term issue.
We cannot comment on that, obviously.
Dr. Stephen Farry
I just have two short questions about the two Rs rather than the three Rs. The first one relates to reconciliation and building a shared future. There is a school of thought that says the Good Friday Agreement almost froze the divisions in Northern Ireland regarding conflict management, but at the time the agreement was formulated there were a lot of aspirations and hopes that we would see an evolution in that respect. Does Lord Alderdice feel it is a glass half-full or half-empty in that regard?
The second question relates to reform, probably in a similar light. A particular set of structures were put in place that perhaps fitted people's world view of how Northern Ireland was constituted back in 1998 but, as Lord Alderdice appreciates, demographics and electoral fortunes have changed quite substantially since then. To what extent does Lord Alderdice feel the institutions need to be modified to reflect those changes and to take into account some of the experiences of blockages and vetoes over the past 25 years?
Lord Alderdice
The questions are very much related to each other, as Dr. Farry says. We have to be a little careful about our expectations of reconciliation because, in truth, that is about how people feel about each other and engage with each other. I am pretty cautious about the expectations of reconciliation if we understand that in a powerful and fundamental way as distinct from simply accepting we have to live together in a community that may have diverse perspectives in it.
When it comes to reform, we are in an easier place to speak about it - maybe not easier to deliver, but an easier place to speak about it. As Dr. Farry might recall, in the governing with consent document, we took the view that the best way of getting agreement on the formation of the Executive was a weighted majority. In that document it was 70%. When it came to the talks process, I pushed very hard to get a weighted majority of 67% because I felt that would ensure you had to get cross-community support. No one community could get 67%, so cross-community support was necessary. What it would do would be to encourage politicians on one side of the community, as we used to talk about, to try to win the support of people on the other side of the community.
The problem I could see with the proposition John Hume was very wedded to of a majority of unionists, a majority of nationalists, and a majority of the whole was that it encouraged party leaders on one side of the community to appeal to the people on their own side and leaders on the other side of the community to appeal to people on their side. Although John wanted to see things coming together and, frankly, I think, could not foresee a situation where the SDLP was not the largest nationalist party and the Ulster Unionist Party, UUP, was not the largest unionist party, there was in fact a dynamic built into that which was polarising in its nature. That is why I did not want to go down that particular road. I well remember, and I do not believe this has been a matter of public record before, a conversation with David Trimble after he had decided to go along with John's proposal where he was somewhat in two minds as to whether it was the best way forward. I suspect he and John thought theirs would be the two largest parties and they could probably divvy up the Alliance Party vote between them. What actually happened was something quite radically different. Given the new situation we are in, a radically different position in terms of support for the Alliance Party, the SDLP and the UUP, returning to the kind of proposition - not every item of it - we had been making for a long time of a weighted majority as the best way of reaching across the community divide in the establishment of an Executive is something people ought to be getting back to looking at again 25 years later. I do not believe the Good Friday Agreement is the law of the Medes and Persians. It needs to evolve and change as the situation changes if it is going to remain a worthwhile way forward, not just in terms of reform but in the longer term, we fervently hope, in respect of the reconciliation to which Dr. Farry referred in the first part of his comment.
I thank Lord Alderdice for coming in today. It has been powerful listening to him. Many of the questions have been covered and he has answered them brilliantly, might I add. I only had one question. It is about the drafting of the Good Friday Agreement and the whole area of the criteria for how the Secretary of State can call a border poll at any time and we do not know what the criteria are. I want to get a bit of an understanding of what the thinking was behind that. That is my only question for Lord Alderdice.
Lord Alderdice
I thank the Senator for her comments and for her question, which is in a sense a more topical question than it was 25 years ago. At the time of the Good Friday Agreement, nobody was under any illusions as to what the situation would have been had there been a border poll. The overwhelming majority of people would have voted to stay in the UK with better relations with the Republic of Ireland institutionalised through the Good Friday Agreement and so on. It is a very different situation altogether 25 years on. It is becoming an increasingly difficult and more complicated one for a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Does a Secretary of State look at opinion polls over a period of time? Does a Secretary of State look at the support for political parties or for the number of MLAs in a new assembly after an election? It is not an easy one.
I remember talking to a friend a few years ago who was a strong supporter of the SDLP.
We were talking about how the situation was and I joked with her and said, "Well, you are going to get what you want". When she asked what I was talking about, I said, "You are going to get a united Ireland; I do not know exactly when, but that is the direction things are going in quite clearly". When she said she did not want a united Ireland, I asked her to wait a minute because she had always told me that she voted for the SDLP. She said "Oh yes, but I don't actually want a united Ireland", and I replied, "I'm sorry, but you're going to end up getting it because that's what you voted for". I think we have to recognise when we count up the votes that go to political parties that there may not be exactly the same support for some of the parties' leading policies in a referendum that there appears to be if you just count up their votes. It is a bit of a complicated one. My view is that the Secretary of State, whoever it happens to be, should not put themselves in a position where they appear to be, as is the case in Scotland at the moment, resisting a border poll. I think they should make it clear that they are open to it. As it becomes clearer that that is the trajectory, they should sit down to talk to people about it and try to get a bit of a sense of the situation. Everybody then will need to be careful that they might get what they asked for, and that they might not necessarily want it. Rather than a simple formula, I think it is a bit more complex than that. It is an important decision for the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State and the British Government should not allow themselves to get into a position where they look as though they are resisting it for any reason other than that manifestly there is no support for it and that is an obvious thing.
The position on Scotland is a difficult one because there has already been a referendum, and you cannot have a referendum every ten minutes. The British Government looks as though it is standing in the way of it. I do not think that is a good place for it to be. I do not think that would be in the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.
I thank Lord Alderdice.
I will ask Lord Alderdice a few questions before we go into the second round. I welcome his commentary. Some of the speakers we have had before us seemed to say there was an implicit agreement that the Irish Government would have to be consulted on the decision of the Secretary of State in Britain on that issue. They suggested that it was implicit that it would have to be done with the consent of both Governments even though this is not actually stated in the agreement. I do not know if Lord Alderdice has a view on that. Does he agree that it will not be a case of one person looking into his or her heart, like de Valera would have in the past, but instead it will be a case of the two Governments reaching a consensus?
Lord Alderdice
I agree, although it may be a more complicated thing than it first appears. I remember at one time in the talks process, when things were at a bit of a difficult stage, a rather senior Irish civil servant whom I will not name or identify told me he had been thinking that in the event of a united Ireland, some of these DUP fellows might be minister of agriculture or something like that. When I said that was absolutely right, he said he was going off the notion. You have found a way of getting on reasonably well with yourselves south of the Border, but you should not assume that if Northerners come in it will be all peace and pleasantness. I think it would be a bit difficult. There are some people who would have questions about that. Having said that, of course there should be consultation. There should be consultation between the two Governments all the time on all the issues. Certainly, a major thing like the decision to have a border poll is not something that should be done without consultation with the Irish Government.
Absolutely.
Lord Alderdice
I am just pointing out that it might be easier for the British Government to say yes to a border poll than for some people in Ireland to say it with a full heart, knowing the consequences.
That is a key point there. Lord Alderdice made a very important comment earlier when he spoke about the implications of Brexit. I am not quoting Lord Alderdice verbatim, but he said that there is less of an interest in what happens here in Britain. He referred to a change in the way they look at the relationships. That gives those of us who believe in a united Ireland a chance to put our proposition in detail to the unionist community. As Lord Alderdice has said, people in that community feel that they would less favourably treated and therefore look less favourably on a united Ireland or a new configuration of relationships on this island. The key point to me is not getting a border poll or a majority of one; it is getting a significant consensus in favour of it based on - this is the key point - the absolute need to reassure the unionist community of all their rights into the future, including the right to remain British always and to choose their Britishness if that is what they want. Equally, the nationalists will have their right to choose their Irish identity. That is the key to it. The point about Britain is that if we can reach a consensus on this island, Britain will not have a problem with that. In other words, it will no longer have any other interest in it other than trying to extract itself from this historic problem. I do not know if that makes sense to Lord Alderdice.
Lord Alderdice
I would go back to something which John Hume repeatedly said. It was one of a number of important pieces of political progress that were brought about by John Hume with the language he developed. The point he repeatedly made in public and in private was that it was not about uniting territory; it was about bringing people together. It was about uniting people. In a way, we have sort of slipped back a bit from that into talking about borders, polls, territory, institutions and all those kinds of things. All of those things are important, but fundamentally it is about how you bring people to have a relationship with each other. John Hume repeatedly spoke about that, absolutely rightly. It had a positive influence on how people thought about these things. It is not about a united Ireland in terms of the territory; it is about how you bring the people who live on the island of Ireland to a place where they can have a shared view of what the future should look like. That is the key thing. John Hume emphasised that. I remember that when he was talking about his talks with the IRA, he said he had asked them what they wanted, and they had said they wanted a united Ireland. When he told them to look at the map and see that it is one island, they said "Yes, yes, yes but there is a Border". He made the point to them that what the Border tells us is that the people who live on the island cannot agree how to share it, so we have to get agreement on how to share it. That is what the Good Friday Agreement was about. That sharing bit - that relationship bit of the people or peoples - is the key thing. We should not let go of that. We should not forget about that.
I have to say I agree. I think that is the key issue. It is up to all of us to put the proposition out there. The difficulty, obviously, is to get unionists to engage with that, or even to talk in a formal or informal way about it. One of the points that has been put to me - I think Senator Blaney touched on it - relates to trying to find something we can all agree on. For example, can we advance a proposition on which unionists and nationalists on the whole island, North and South, can agree and which will improve health services for everybody? Can we build a new internationally renowned university, a third level institution that everybody can sign up to, in the north west? Can we improve our transport connectivity? I suppose it goes back to the shared island concept. Those of us in government in the South are putting in a significant amount of money to show the good faith we have in this regard, and we would put a lot more in. To me, that is the way you will get a new island - a new relationship that will not result in the equivalent of an IRA campaign on the extreme unionist side. If you force people into a united Ireland by a majority of one, or even a majority of 2,000 or 3,000, you are going to face generations of hostility and division. Notwithstanding the majority of one, there must be a meeting of minds. That is my opinion on it.
Lord Alderdice
I think that is absolutely right. In the talks process, one of the challenges I faced was to find a way of talking about North-South collaboration that did not make unionists immediately antagonistic. It struck me that the Foyle Fisheries Commission was a very interesting model. It was a very small model but very interesting. The fish in the Foyle did not respect the Border; they just swam about the place. That is why, North and South, an executive body had to be established which reported to the Governments North and South. It went on for a long time. Because that collaboration happened and because it worked, it was possible to say to unionists that having a North-South body is not a betrayal of your history or your background because previous unionists did that when they had Stormont. If you couch North-South collaboration in terms of being a way to seduce unionists away from their adherence to Britain, I think you will get a kickback.
However, if you say we are about building good relationships and collaborating together on things that make social and economic sense, there is a much better possibility of collaboration and the future will take care of itself. If people feel they are being engineered into something, there is a bit of a Protestant northern culture that tends to dig its heels in and be a bit stubborn about things.
I think it is down here as well.
Ms Órfhlaith Begley
Lord Alderdice is very welcome. I was not going to pick up on this point but, in the previous conversation and in this committee, we have discussed much about constitutional change in the future and what shape that may take. There has also been a focus on citizens' assemblies. Sinn Féin has been a strong advocate of putting pressure on the Government to establish citizens' assemblies in order that we can have a debate and conversation on future constitutional change. It is far to say that almost 25 years on from the Good Friday Agreement, there is considerable interaction and discussion to this day about a potential border poll and what shape a new Ireland may take. We only have to look at the recent Ireland's Future event, which more than 5,000 people attended, to have those discussions and debates. Does Lord Alderdice think a citizens' assembly would be good with regard to trying to have that debate and conversation and trying to include those from a unionist background.
Lord Alderdice
I am glad Ms Begley reminded me of the civic forum because it was raised earlier and I did not make a comment on it. It is a real shame it did not continue. The civic forum was in place when I was speaker and I engaged with its chairman. It could have developed more momentum. By sitting in the Senate Chamber in Stormont and bringing about an approach that was energetic, committed and proactive, it could have survived longer. I very much hope that is an element of the Good Friday Agreement that could be returned to because it is very important to have other ways into government discussion rather than merely through elected representatives, not that they are not absolutely key.
With regard to citizens' assemblies, it is always positive to try to get people involved in the discussion. However, if it is simply people who already largely agree on what the outcome might be, in a case such as the question of a united Ireland, and if the only people who come along to participate, in an energetic way and in any sort of numbers, are those who are already convinced that is what they want, I am not sure it achieves what citizens' assemblies are meant to achieve, that is, to bring together people with different perspectives and to try to find a way of reaching agreement beyond political partisanship.
If it simply represents the views of people who already agree with each other and the others do not want to or do not come along, I have no objection to it but I am not sure that it fulfils things as fruitfully as one might hope would be the case. However, if it becomes possible to have significant numbers and representation from those who take a different perspective, then something may well be able to come from it. The perquisite is that there are people who differ from each other and are prepared to disagree without damaging each other.
Ms Órfhlaith Begley
Is there a role for the Government or, indeed, the British Government to facilitate that discussion going forward? If we were to use that approach, it may help or encourage those from a unionist background to be involved in the discussion.
Lord Alderdice
I find it difficult to be definitive about that. The fact that the British Government wants something does not mean that unionists will go along with it . It is very important to understand that. The relationship between nationalists and republicans and the Government on the one hand and the relationship between unionists and loyalists and the British Government on the other is completely different. Loyalists and unionists know in their hearts that the British Government, in the end, would not be too sorry to be rid of the problem. Thus, they do not have the same kind of element of trust in or accept guidance from that government. They are not two sides that are mirror images of each other.
I would be cautious about getting two governments involved in something such as this, as distinct from the political thing. They are political institutions and need to be the driver of the political dimension. Getting governments involved with civil society may be the way forward or it may be better to try to use some elements of civil society, such as getting the universities, churches and trade unions, North and South, and civil society representation to say something about how to create this kind of civil society assembly. It might have a better chance of becoming acceptable.
The two governments need to drive the political dimension of things but I think Ms Begley is talking about trying to take it out of partisan politics and knee-jerk reactions to the other side and into a more fruitful debate. This would be good in principle. I am bit agnostic as to what is the best way of achieving a good outcome in that.
Ms Órfhlaith Begley
I have follow-up questions with regard to human rights. When the Good Friday Agreement was being devised 25 years ago, it was with the interpretation that there would be equal rights throughout this Ireland but, unfortunately, we have seen a diminution of rights over time. I look towards the British Government as being the key anchor in that. We have not seen the implementation of a Bill of rights. What is Lord Alderdice's opinion on where we sit at present? We do not have those protections, especially in the North. Some of the other regions have equality Acts and we, unfortunately, do not. If the Human Rights Act 1998 was to be repealed, that would be very worrying for the people living in the north of this island. What role does Lord Alderdice see with regard to the Government stepping up to the plate in ensuring there is a bill of rights for the North. What does he see as the British Government's role there?
Lord Alderdice
One would have a difficult situation were the two governments to come into conflict over the question. There is a clear conflict within the Westminster system. I am a Liberal Democrat and the party of which I am part is very strongly opposed to the current British Government approach on this question. Ms Begley will find that is also true of the Labour Party and, indeed, of some Conservatives. However, getting into a fight between the British and Irish Governments over this will not be very helpful. A thoughtful engagement and trying to persuade people that this is very important internationally, as well as domestically, is a priority. Regardless of the longer-term political future, this is a priority and engaging people in the conversation to make that happen is the thing to do.
I cannot say what will happen in Westminster. It is a very febrile and unpredictable place at present, as Ms Begley probably knows, but there are many people there who are deeply unhappy about the approach that is being taken and the fact that things that were promised have not been delivered and things that were not promised have come into play. It is a difficult one. There is no easy answer.
Should the Government engage with the British Government in a constructive way? Of course it should. The two governments working together is critical to all of this, but it is about working together to achieve it and that is a challenge. As somebody said about two horses that were ploughing - one horse was willing to work and the other was willing to let it. That is the problem. Getting two people who are in a harness together, want to go the same direction and have the same energy is one thing, but one horse being willing and the other horse willing to let it work is another. That is kind of what we have at present. Many of us will try to do our best at Westminster to try to change attitudes and we have to work together on it. There is no magic or easy answer to that one.
Mr. Mickey Brady
I thank Lord Alderdice for the presentation. It was very interesting and he has covered many points. As Ms Begley said, many parts of the Good Friday Agreement have simply not been implemented.
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about revising the Good Friday Agreement, and that is without implementing the original. If we follow on from the Bill of Rights, which has been implemented, St. Andrews and Acht na Gaeilge and other language Acts that have been put on the long finger, it seems to me that there is an unwillingness to carry on by both Governments who are joint guarantors, as was mentioned.
It was interesting to listen to the description of the friend who voted for the SDLP but did not want a united Ireland. I was around when the SDLP was formed. It was my understanding at that time the reunification of this country was way down its list of priorities. Maybe he was voting for the right party, as far as he was concerned, at a particular time. That is only a personal observation.
In terms of the Good Friday Agreement and what has not been implemented, legacy was not a big issue at the time because it was so contentious. Lord Alderdice is a Member of the House of Lords, and I presume the legacy Bill will come before the committee. Has he picked up any insider knowledge on how that might be addressed? The Parliament can overrule that, as it can with the protocol Bill. A lot of things go through Parliament that, in the long term, will not be very conducive to those of us in the North.
When I was in Stormont in 2007 and welfare cuts were being introduced, I was invited to speak at a church in east Belfast about the cuts and how they would impact on communities. What struck me at the time, which pertains to the current cost of living crisis, was that the community I represented in nationalist republican areas would be as badly off as loyalist communities in east Belfast. At the time that was accepted. There was a lot of talk about going forward together in dealing with this. Unfortunately, the flag protest came along very shortly afterwards and skewed the whole thing. I will continue to make the point that both communities have a lot more in common than is sometimes realised, particularly in terms of day-to-day living. A single parent with kids is not particularly bothered about the politics of what is happening; they are struggling on a day-to-day basis. That is now becoming more relevant with the cost-of-living crisis.
I deal with a lot of people from the unionist community on a daily basis in my constituency clinic. If one is an abstentionist, as I am, one spends a fair amount of time in a constituency dealing with constituents. I deal with issues around loyalism, unionism and people from our community. When people sit down to think about it, we are the only ones who want each other. I am sure the lack of interest in Westminster in the Six Counties is also apparent to others. We lobby all parties, the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Conservative. The lack of knowledge they have about and interest in the Six Counties is evident. They really do not want us.
At some stage we need to sit down and talk. There has been a lot of talk about a united Ireland concept. It is as if we want to be bolted on to the Twenty-six Counties in the morning as things stand, and God forbid as far as I am concerned. What we need to do is sit down and talk about a new and inclusive Ireland, how it will impact on our loyalist, unionist, nationalist and republican communities and how that affects people in the South. People want a proper health service which is free at the point of access, an integrated education system and to know how their quality of life will be improved. We need to get that message across and that is why we need to sit down and talk.
Lord Alderdice is not too keen on a citizens' assembly, but it may be a way to proceed. Trade unionism in Ireland is an all-Ireland movement. There are all-Ireland bodies which can sit down and contribute. What are his views on that?
Lord Alderdice
I thank Mr. Brady. There are parts of the Good Friday Agreement that have not been implemented and parts that were implemented and then abandoned, like the civic forum.. A civic form existed for a while and was effectively abandoned. There is no reason it should not be brought back at any stage. There is no law against it; on the contrary.
Changes were made, such as in St. Andrews. I do not think we are very good at change, but changes were made to accommodate short-term political advantages or problems for people. That is rarely a good way of sorting out constitutional arrangements. Mr. Brady is correct. There have been changes that were not very good, a failure to implement parts and parts that were implemented and then abandoned. Too many people forget that. It is a complicated history. The key thing is to use the 25th anniversary to take us forward to something that is better.
Mr. Brady made a comment that sparked something in my mind. I spoke to a colleague from what was, in the old days, East Germany, many years ago when both of us were involved in church youth activities. He was of a very different political persuasion to me and was quite supportive of the regime in East Germany at that time. The point he made to me was that when German unification took place, it was the absorption of the east into the west German constitution. They had no say in the constitution, flag, national anthem or any of those aspects. East Germany was simply absorbed and told we will do this, this and this. He said he felt for himself and others there was an abiding resentment caused by that.
There is an interesting question that might come out of Mr. Brady's comments, namely if it became possible to say that we are not talking about absorption of the North into the South but rather the creation of a new Ireland that all of us live with. As Mr. Brady said, the living with it is not just a question of identity, although I do not think we can understate that and his party would certainly be pretty strong about a sense of identity, as others might be of theirs. He mentioned many important aspects, such as health, education, transport and agriculture. Talking about those kind of things could be a very helpful way of moving forward and one which people might well find more agreement on that they might imagine.
I found in the talks process that when we started talking about matters of high principle, we inevitably ended up with division. When we started talking about matters of practical concern, we often found that there was a greater identity of interest. There is mileage in what Mr. Brady said. Exactly how we do it is the issue. I suppose we have to do it carefully, and not be put off if not everybody signs up for it in the first instance. There are interesting thoughts in what he said and it merits further conversation. I know his party and others are currently trying to explore some of these questions, and I would encourage that.
There is some really good content in the debate. Mr. Brady and Lord Alderdice hit the nail on the head in terms of discussing the issues of the day, such as education and the health service. That is why the work of the shared island unit, led by the Taoiseach, is critically important. That is not recognised by all across the political spectrum or given the credence I feel it should be. What is happening is the necessary preparation if we are going to sit down and talk about our shared future. We need to know the differences in the education systems and health services North and South. People in Northern Ireland hold dearly the current concept of their health service in Northern Ireland. We need to compare outcomes.
The economy, farming and agriculture were also mentioned. The work of the shared island unit is about getting an understanding of the differences, which is vital preparation. If the protocol is off the table, we hope that one day we will get a UK Government that has a more open approach and will sit down and take an interest in and discuss these issues.
The one organisation across these islands that is getting quite a bit of focus at the moment is Ireland's Future. The organisation has come before the committee and I have been critical of it because I feel the work it is doing could be more fruitful if it merged some of the work with the shared island unit.
The shared dialogue series is the only vehicle that is going into unionist communities. The more organisations such as Ireland's Future keep talking up a united Ireland, the greater the possibility that we push unionists further away. That is the fear I have. I am not sure what people expect the outcome to be when we speak at unionists rather than sit down with them. I am not just saying this for myself. I hear strong views when I meet unionist politicians and the community throughout Northern Ireland. I also hear it from some nationalists. What is the opinion of Lord Alderdice on the work of the shared island unit and organisations such as Ireland's Future? Could they play a greater role? If so, what does he think this role could and should be?
Lord Alderdice
I thank Senator Blaney for the question and the comment. The first thing I want to pick up on is the contribution of the Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, and not just in terms of structures and proposals. The tone he has taken has been very helpful. It is a thoughtful nuanced tone and sometimes quite courageously so. As is the case with many of these things, it does not always get the positive response that it deserves. He has tried and is trying and I hope he will continue to try to move along the line that he has taken.
In terms of collaboration, there is a lot that could be done to address the practical difficulties that exist. When I was involved as a psychotherapist it was clear that we needed to work together North and South to develop psychotherapy services. This was because we did not have enough people with the qualifications and experience either in the North or the South on its own. I set up the Irish Forum for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy which still exists and continues to work. I did not always find it that easy to get colleagues from the North to come with me to Dublin. It seemed to be a shorter route from Dublin to Belfast than it was from Belfast to Dublin. At any rate it was important.
I then began to explore co-operation in psychiatry and medicine generally and in areas such as policing. I wanted to see whether we could arrange for people to do stints in the corresponding organisation on the other side of the Border, such as young doctors doing part of their training in the North or the South and police officers going North and South. I began to run into all sorts of practical difficulties. Some of these may have been excuses but I do not think they all were. There were issues such as pensions. If people took two years out of their pension scheme in the North, were they disadvantaged? It was the same vice versa for people who went from the South to the North. If we start to explore these types of practical questions, we might begin to make things happen that would then not be a problem down the line because they would have already been sorted. This could be the case if we could practically co-operate even more than we do already on healthcare North and South. Particularly in areas of high specialism we need the population of the entire island to make a service viable and this has happened.
If we work on these practical issues people will begin to see it happening, such as when Drew Harris came down to take up a position in the Garda Síochána. This was a very positive message to unionists in the North that there is an openness to working together North and South on policing. This has not always been the easiest thing to work on in either direction. There are practical things that can be done that may well help people to get over some of their anxieties and resolve some very real constitutional, practical and economic issues such as pensions. We can ask how this could be an issue. It is because we have different systems North and South. If we work on these, we might be able to make quite useful progress that would mitigate some of the practical anxieties people have.
From speaking to a number of people in the unionist community in recent times, I know a big concern they have is not whether they will be oppressed on whether Protestant churches would be closed, it is about losing the health service. The health service is anything but ideal. It is anything but perfect. It is not as good as it was, frankly, ten or 15 years ago. Nevertheless people have confidence in it. This could be a key issue for many people if there were a border poll. If people want a border poll to go in a particular way, they may need to work on the issue of healthcare North and South to get the answer they want.
On that point, very quickly, there is an agreement to have an all-Ireland cancer strategy and a lot of work is being done on this. Lord Alderdice is absolutely right that it is the way forward. I apologise for interrupting.
I entirely agree with the Cathaoirleach. As Lord Alderdice said, we have a small population on our island of 7 million people. There are some services that are very difficult to deliver in a scattered method. On the point made by the Cathaoirleach and Senator Blaney regarding the shared island unit, earlier Lord Alderdice mentioned it would be a helpful way of moving forward a number of issues. This day last week, I was at an event in Cavan where An Taoiseach announced 25 projects that were being funded through the local authorities to develop further proposals for large-scale infrastructural investment in tourism, climate action and a range of activities. Significantly, 23 of our local authorities are involved in these projects. Every local authority in Northern Ireland is involved, as are local authorities down from as far away as Cork and Kerry. It is great to see it. There are joint proposals for North-South projects and all-Ireland projects. There were people attending who hold the position of chair or cathaoirleach of various councils North and South. Regardless of their political viewpoint, there was an extremely warm welcome for these proposals. Many of them are projects we have spoken about North and South over the years but they have never been funded or progressed. From that point of view, it is a practical way of building communities across the Border.
The shared island unit has issued invitations to attend a dialogue series next week in Belfast. There is an event at Queens University Belfast on culture and arts and the challenges and opportunities for all of our island. There is another event in the Titanic Quarter, with a joint initiative by the shared island unit in the Department of the Taoiseach and the ESRI comparing the education and training systems North and South. This is doing effective work that can put better systems in place to benefit people of both communities regardless of what viewpoint they hold or what political tradition they come from. That is very important.
I heard An Taoiseach say in the Dáil at Question Time on Tuesday that more than 3,000 people have partaken in the dialogue series. This is really getting civic engagement. People go along to events on a subject matter in which they have a particular interest. This is the type of engagement that will take place in Belfast next week at two different events. That is welcome. We are speaking about all-Ireland forums. It would be very beneficial if the civic forum constituted in Stormont many years ago were reconstituted. It is always important that we have as much local engagement from a civic point of view as is possible.
Ms Michelle Gildernew
Lord Alderdice has named ten or 12 themes on which we could have specific assemblies developing recommendations. I have attended many of the shared island events. I have enjoyed them. At the end of the day, I am not sure what is coming out of them. Will there be recommendations? The shared island process is welcome but it is at a very different level from where a citizens' assembly would be. When we see the very positive dialogue happening at shared island events I cannot understand why parties are setting their face against a citizens' assembly that could examine in depth what the Irish health service or education system would look like after unity and all of the issues we have spoken about, including policing and justice. There are many areas of co-operation that we will need to develop further. I am not sure there is enough meat in the shared island debates or the recommendations coming out of them.
We always welcome dialogue wherever it is and whatever level it is at but we need to see something tangible coming out of it so people can actually see what different areas of life that are so important to all of us would look like on the other side of a unity poll.
Lord Alderdice
I want to pick up on the way Ms Gildernew spoke about that, which was very important. Regarding the terminology she used - shared island and sometimes North-South - people from a unionist perspective do not come out in goose bumps when they hear that terminology. Whenever people talk about all-Ireland bodies, it immediately makes unionists bristle. Language is important. If you want to wind people up, it is not hard to do so in any direction. If on the other hand, you want to take things forward, the careful use of language is really important. I know Ms Gildernew knows that because I listened to what she is saying and she is quite careful about the way she speaks about it because she lives there and works with people and so on. John Hume and colleagues developed a particular language for the Good Friday Agreement process where we spoke about things in a particular way. It was not just playing with words. David Trimble famously said that because people have a past we do not like does not mean there cannot be a different future. There are ways of speaking about things that can be helpful and ways that can be unhelpful. I would flag that when we talk about all-Ireland bodies, that has a particular resonance for many people in the unionist community that North-South bodies or even shared island bodies does not have. The language we use is an important dimension to think about.
On a point of order, I do not believe anybody in Fianna Fáil has anything against citizens' assemblies proposed by Ms Gildernew but it is really important that in respect of the shared island work, we establish what the status quo with the health service North and South is because it is only when you have that information that you can sit down and decide what you want into the future. The shared island work is critical first. That preparatory work is critical. I believe that in future, the citizens' assembly will be useful in that regard - just not at the moment.
When the Taoiseach and officials from the shared island unit were here, the Taoiseach indicated that he wanted proposals from us as individuals or from the committee. That is the message that has been sent to every local authority. I remember the initial meeting we had with the officials. I was very strong that the corporate knowledge in our local authorities had to be harnessed to work along with the shared island unit. That is actually happening. What was announced last Thursday was funding to local authorities to develop the proposals that can draw down some very substantial funding from the shared island unit so it is going into communities. Local authorities in particular have that great link with local parishes and communities and can translate that into really effective policy. Not alone will it be a policy aspiration, the funding is there to bring these projects to fruition.
I think everybody has contributed and listened. I was very impressed by Lord Alderdice's openness, the information he gave us, his perspective and the clarity he brought to some issues that divide us here. I thank him for his contribution and look forward to meeting him again. Hopefully, the committee will have a future engagement with him. His experience, knowledge and objectivity are clear to all of us. We thank him for giving us his time today. The committee will go into private session.
The joint committee went into private session at 3.14 p.m and adjourned at 3.37 p.m. until 1.30 p.m. on Thursday, 13 October 2022.