The witnesses, both those here in the committee room and those joining us online, are all very welcome. I thank them for their time. On behalf of the committee, I welcome Dr. Jack Armstrong, PhD graduate at Queen's University Belfast; Dr. Lisa Claire Whitten, a research fellow at the centre for inclusive trade policy, Queen's University Belfast school of law; and Dr. Conor Kelly, early career fellow in constitutional studies, University of Oxford, and honorary research associate at the University College London constitution unit. He is here with co-authors Professor Alan Renwick, professor of democratic politics and director of the UCL constitution unit, and Mr. Alan Whysall, former senior civil servant in the Northern Ireland Office and senior research associate at the UCL constitution unit. Dr. Whitten, Dr. Kelly and Professor Renwick are joining us online. They are all very welcome. We look forward to engaging with them on this very topical issue and the opportunity to discuss their research regarding the reforms of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive. Their collective work addresses the core architectural challenges of the devolved institutions, and we look forward to discussing institutional reform aimed at improving government efficiency and the analysis of cross-community consent mechanisms.

The format of the meeting is that I will invite each witness to make an opening statement. I believe Dr. Armstrong will go first. The opening statements will be followed by questions from members of the committee. Each member of the committee will have five minutes to ask their questions and for witnesses to respond, all within those five minutes.

Before we get to that point, I remind members of the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. Members of the committee attending remotely must do so from within the precincts of Leinster House. This is due to the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the place where Parliament has chosen to sit. In that regard, I ask any member partaking via MS Teams that, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm that they are on the grounds of Leinster House.

Members and witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity.

Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, I will direct them to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction. As the witnesses will probably be aware, the committee will publish their opening statements on our website after this meeting. Members of parliament participating in this committee from a jurisdiction outside of the State are advised that they should also be mindful of their domestic law and how it may apply to their participation in these proceedings.

With all that said, I invite Dr. Armstrong to make his opening statement, to be followed by Dr. Whitten, Dr. Kelly and so on.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members very much for the invitation to meet the committee today to discuss my policy paper, entitled "Reform of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive". This paper builds on my PhD research and was completed as part of my participation in the emerging leaders programme, which was organised by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. Each of us on the programme worked on a policy paper relating to Northern Ireland politics and presented it to a conference in New York city last year.

My policy paper looked at the political institutions established through the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The agreement has been successful in delivering peace in Northern Ireland, something we all rightly acknowledge and appreciate, but not successful in delivering long-term and effective governance. The instability of the Assembly and Executive remains a fundamental flaw. Twice in the last decade, we have seen the two main parties refuse to nominate members to relevant positions, leading to the complete absence of political institutions and leadership for five of the last ten years. My policy paper therefore sought to propose practical solutions to ensure the Assembly and Executive are no longer subject to such one-party vetoes, while also maintaining the fundamental principles of power-sharing that were central to the Good Friday Agreement.

The paper distinguishes between reforms to the Assembly and to the Executive. The Assembly includes a number of mechanisms based on the principles of consociationalism, ensuring that unionists and nationalists have safeguards to protect their interests. These include: the requirement for MLAs to designate as unionist, nationalist or other; the use of cross-community votes, which require a majority of both unionist and nationalist MLAs to pass; and the petition of concern, which can force a cross-community vote on any issue if signed by 30 MLAs from at least two parties.

While the historical context behind designations and cross-community votes is understandable, their current operation is increasingly unjustifiable with a significantly larger group of non-aligned MLAs who are effectively excluded from such cross-community votes. One particular problem is that cross-community voting has, against the wishes of a clear majority of MLAs, been used to prevent the Assembly from operating. For example, in May 2022, just after the last Assembly election, 62 MLAs out of 90 voted to elect a speaker. Only 25 MLAs voted against but, because those 25 MLAs constituted a unionist majority, the motion failed.

In the paper, I proposed three solutions to improve the effectiveness of the Assembly: abolishing community designations; replacing cross-community voting with a supermajority of 60% to 65% for key decisions, which is enough to ensure that some support from unionists and nationalists is required while not allowing for a one-party veto; and narrowing the use of petitions of concern to issues of an obvious ethno-national significance, with an impartial panel to determine its appropriate use.

The Executive is also based around clear consociational principles. These include the co-equal nature of the Executive office, namely, the First Minister and deputy First Minister, and the use of the d’Hondt system to allocate Departments so that every party with enough seats is included, with the exception of justice, which is elected through a cross-community vote. The inclusive nature of the Executive is important for co-operation, but it features few incentives for cross-party working and collective responsibility does not exist as it does here in the Oireachtas and in Westminster.

More concerning is the way that one of the two main parties can resign as First Minister or deputy First Minister and simply leave the post, and the entire Executive, vacant for years. This is the most fundamental flaw that needs to be addressed. Some parties have called for a return to the initial Good Friday Agreement model, which was changed through the St. Andrews Agreement in 2006, where the Assembly elects the First Minister and deputy First Minister by cross-community vote. While this would be an improvement in some ways, it would still give a veto to the two main parties.

I have two solutions to the institutional flaws within the Executive to ensure more genuine power-sharing. First, if a party turns down the First Minister or deputy First Minister position, that entitlement should move to the next largest party, as with other Departments via the d’Hondt system. This removes any incentive to block appointments for political reasons. Second, after the full Executive is appointed, it should propose a programme for government and agreed budget plan to be approved by the Assembly through a weighted majority vote within a specific timeframe. This would ensure democratic accountability and collective responsibility.

In the long term, we need to move towards the normalisation of Northern Ireland politics and a more voluntary form of government should be part of that. However, my immediate priority is these reforms to allow the Assembly and Executive to deliver now for the people of Northern Ireland.

I thank the committee members for their time and their interest in my policy paper. I am happy to answer any questions or to address any comments or feedback.

I thank the committee for the invitation to be here this morning. It is an honour to join this discussion. In particular, I appreciate the option to do so remotely. I have a little one turning one next month, so coming online allows me to better manage her little life as well as my own.

When constitutional change is mentioned in the context of Northern Ireland, it normally means just one thing: a united Ireland versus a United Kingdom. However, the so-called "constitutional question" that this juxtaposition connotes, namely, whether a majority of the people in Northern Ireland will ever opt to leave the UK in favour of joining Ireland, is not the only type of constitutional change that is possible in, or important for, Northern Ireland. Without seeking to discount or relegate the potential for constitutional change of the kind that would arise from a future border poll referendum, much of the published research that I have been involved in on these matters has been premised on the understanding that constitutional change comes in many forms, most of which fall short of a wholesale change in statehood. However, that does not mean that they are unworthy of consideration for contemporary Northern Ireland.

A strong case can be made that the constitutional arrangements that are specific to Northern Ireland have never been orientated towards good government, or at least not towards good government alone. Instead, due to the historic requirement to resolve conflict between opposing understandings of Northern Ireland history and visions for its future, the constitutional architecture of the place has, more often than not, reflected a lowest common denominator logic whereby the arrangements for its government derive from what can be agreed rather than what ought to be agreed if good governance was the aim. While that may sound like quite a negative framing, I would also contend that recognising this sometimes uncomfortable reality is a necessary first step in any attempt to improve the quality of Northern Ireland government in the immediate term and even to secure its constitutional stability in the longer term while still allowing for a change in its constitutional status by an agreed and democratic process. Indeed, I would suggest that starting with such an understanding allows us to better make the case for reforming the institutions of government in Northern Ireland not in pursuit of any partisan political ends, but for the purpose of improving the efficacy of the established institutions such that they better serve the people and policy areas for which they are responsible both now and in the future.

While I look forward to getting into detail regarding the various different options for institutional reform, some of which have already been set out by Dr. Armstrong, by way of introduction, I want to mention two specific aspects of contemporary Northern Ireland government that I think are important but that are not always considered in the context of institutional reform and constitutional change conversations. Given that I have spent more time than I would care to admit in recent years looking at the implications of Brexit and its outcomes, it is unsurprising that both issues I want to raise relate to the same.

In the post-Brexit era, the arrangements for the government of Northern Ireland are even more particular and complex than they ever have been. Under the protocol-come-Windsor Framework, a specified selection of EU laws, primarily but not exclusively regarding trade in goods, continue to apply in Northern Ireland but do so in the context of its being part of the UK and, therefore, outside the EU legal acquis, as broadly understood. A series of related institutional structures and processes have been iteratively established to manage this post-Brexit arrangement, which is unique to Northern Ireland. These include some very innovative provisions. An example is the democratic consent process whereby MLAs in the Northern Ireland Assembly are given the opportunity, at four or eight-year intervals, to vote on the continuation or discontinuation of the Windsor Framework provisions that relate to trade in goods, namely, Articles 5 to 10, and that therefore allow for the continued free flow of goods across the Ireland-Northern Ireland land border. Another example latterly devised is the so-called Stormont brake procedure, which allows for 30 MLAs from two parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly to initiate a process to potentially block the otherwise automatic application of an EU Act that amends or replaces one of those that already apply under the Windsor Framework, subject to the fulfilment of certain criteria and acceptance on the part of the UK Government of that criteria being fulfilled.

There are other examples, but the point I want to make here is that, post Brexit, the institutions of government in Northern Ireland are required to manage levels of legal and procedural complexity that would be difficult for any state or substate entity, particularly of its size, let alone one still operating in the shadow of internecine conflict.

The second point that I want to raise concerns North-South co-operation. Although one of the express objectives of the Windsor Framework is to maintain the necessary conditions for continued North-South co-operation under Article 13, those EU laws that it makes applicable to Northern Ireland do not include all those that, pre-Brexit, facilitated North-South co-operation on the island of Ireland. If we look at the substance of the 96 areas of North-South co-operation that were identified as relying on EU law frameworks to a greater or lesser extent during the UK-EU negotiations, there is essentially a three-way split. Those EU laws that apply in Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework fully cover 32 areas of pre-Brexit North-South co-operation, partially cover 23 areas and do not cover 27 areas. Those numbers derive from analysis conducted during negotiations in 2017 and, therefore, ought to be taken as indicative only. However, what I think they demonstrate is that in areas such as the environment, police and judicial co-operation, education, sport, tourism and so on, co-operation between the two jurisdictions on this island can be expected to be more difficult today than it was before the UK left the EU.

While these issues may seem somewhat tangential to the topic of institutional reform and constitutional change, it is worth making clear that any changes or reforms to the institutions established under the 1998 agreement are going to have to be implemented in the newly complex context of post-Brexit realities. I thank the committee members for their time. I look forward to questions.

Thank you. There were no interruptions during that presentation, so it looks like Dr. Whitten is all clear for now. I call Dr. Kelly to make his opening remarks.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to it today. I am a political scientist based at the University of Oxford and previously worked for the Constitution Unit at University College London. I am joined today by my Constitution Unit colleagues, Professor Alan Renwick and Mr. Alan Whysall. The Constitution Unit is a research centre looking at how best to structure and operate democratic politics. For a number of years, we have had a focus on Northern Ireland, working with academics and others in Belfast, London and Dublin on ensuring the effective functioning of aspects of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement. Last year, we published a report entitled Reform of Stormont: Options for Discussion, which we will be discussing today. In these opening remarks, I want to quickly introduce three things: first, why we got involved in this piece of work; second, what our report examines; and third, how progress can be made.

In terms of why we got involved in this piece of work, we created the project because, for much of the time since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the power-sharing institutions at Stormont have not been operational, with two long hiatuses in the last decade. Additionally, there have been questions around good government and service provision even when the institutions are in place. Suggestions for reform have increasingly been promoted, generally around three objectives: avoiding collapse of the institutions; ensuring equity in their functioning; and promoting more effective policy-making and implementation. Some parties have long urged reform, but interest in the issue has also grown recently. During the last hiatus in the devolved institutions, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at the House of Commons gathered extensive written and oral evidence, including from us, on possible changes to the operation of the institutions, and it produced a report in 2023.

Our report of March last year aims to facilitate a coherent debate around reform. It considers possible reforms to the power-sharing institutions that have been proposed, along with others that could logically be considered, with the proviso that they can plausibly fit the Good Friday Agreement’s broad principles and architecture. We subdivide proposals into four categories relating to, first, the Executive formation process; second, other aspects of how the Executive functions; third, how the Assembly functions; and fourth, how other parts of strand one operate. The paper does not argue for or against reform in general or for any specific change. Instead, it offers a brief analysis of the practical benefits and difficulties of each proposal, the wider implications of specific changes and how different measures might interact. It is not the final word. In many cases, it is only a starting point for discussion, but we hope that our report will help such discussions to be more informed and coherent. Previous changes have tended to be decided behind closed doors, and it would be much preferable to have a wider debate.

Since the paper was published, debate on reform has intensified. The Assembly and Executive Review Committee at Stormont is currently considering these issues. A number of parties have made or promised reform proposals. A few weeks ago, the Constitution Unit published a further report by Alan Whysall, entitled Improving Government in Northern Ireland: Towards a Programme for Reform. It expands on our earlier report regarding changes that might help to improve the delivery of the institutions, which is increasingly criticised. Again, this report makes no substantive recommendations, but it does urge early discussion and aims to facilitate it.

In terms of how progress can be made, our reform report also considers how changes should come about and whose support would be needed. The 1998 agreement rested on a significant degree of cross-community consensus in Northern Ireland, which was a condition of its adaptation. Later rule changes have generally followed the same path. It is hard to see that permanent changes to these structures could command legitimacy without a large measure of cross-community agreement. For that reason, the process needs to involve the major political parties in Northern Ireland, though some changes would also require legislation at Westminster. Such consensus in Northern Ireland is unlikely to arise spontaneously, however, and facilitation may be necessary. This has traditionally been the role of the two Governments in London and Dublin.

To conclude, as I mentioned at the start of this submission, the Constitution Unit has been engaged in a dedicated programme of research focused on Northern Ireland for a number of years now. We hope this report on reform options is useful for the committee. I thank the committee for the invitation to speak today. We look forward to questions and observations.

I thank Dr. Kelly for those opening remarks and thank all of our witnesses for their insights. We will have five minutes for questions and responses to the questions.

I welcome the witnesses. Unfortunately, five minutes is probably not going to be sufficient time to do justice to the three or four different proposals. Nonetheless, I will make some general points. The Good Friday Agreement, as we all know, was a very carefully constructed, complicated and complex power-sharing arrangement, which reflected the fact that power in the North had been exercised in a very partisan way since the inception of the State. In order to get nationalist buy-in to power-sharing arrangements, protections and guarantees of power-sharing had to be built into the protection of minorities.

We are very much up for reform. There have been previous iterations of reform, most notably at St. Andrews. Through the course of the Good Friday Agreement, there has been reform, but always with a careful understanding that to pick at one thread of the Good Friday Agreement can unravel things that were not intended to be unpicked. Unfortunately, the society there still reflects the fact that we need power-sharing. When we look at the behaviour in some of the local government entities, the necessity for power-sharing and protection is clearly still there in the North.

Unfortunately, even with the reforms proposed, and there is a variety of those, including some proposals that we have made in recent times, there is no guarantee to make things work if people are determined not to make them work. That is part of the central problem - a determination not to make it work. Unfortunately, from last night, we are back to using the petition of concern. The Ulster Unionist Party had committed not to sign petitions of concern, but under new leadership, it has reversed that position and is now using this on the issue of the age of responsibility for criminal justice matters. That is not the reason the petition of concern was put into the Good Friday Agreement arrangements at all; it was for the protection of minorities.

We have made a number of proposals in relation to the veto on Executive formation and the veto on the Assembly sitting that are similar to some of the propositions that have been made by the witnesses in all of the papers. We have also looked at the area of the transparency of the Speaker and the designation of “other” for key votes, which is often an overlooked factor, given that those who have not designated as nationalist or unionist may be at a disadvantage.

Another clear issue that should have been done and was agreed to, although the British Government has yet to do it, is to normalise the appointment of the Justice Minister.

There was a particular arrangement in 2008 to get those powers transferred. There was supposed to be a sunset clause in that, but it has never been enacted. To separate out justice, which has probably been one of the least contentious departments, even with all of the subject matter in it, and still have that proposal for how it is handled is nonsensical. The British Government undertook to move on this, but it has yet to do so. That needs to happen.

We have put forward propositions in relation to devolving fiscal powers. When I was the Minister of Finance in the North, I attempted to get Executive agreement on establishing a commission to look at transferring fiscal powers. The unionists objected to it, but I continued on my own bat, as Minister of Finance, and set up a fiscal commission with eminent people to look at the transfer of fiscal powers. One of the early difficulties we had was that the treasury did not collaborate with it because unionists objected to it. That has been the approach of the British Government, whereby everything is filtered through the prism of what unionists’ sensitives are. It eventually collaborated with it and we produced a substantial report looking at fiscal devolution. I understand that subsequent finance ministers have tried to get that moving but, as ever, we have run into the roadblock of unionist objections.

Some of the reports, particularly the one produced by Mr. Alan Whysall, skip over the issue of the finances of the Executive. I have read the reports and I see no mention of the 15 years of austerity policies and the impact they have had on a society still struggling to emerge from conflict in terms of mental health challenges, demands on our health services and various other services that continue to be underfunded. The agreement on funding at £124 per head is still contested as not being sufficient. There has been a funding gap since that agreement was arranged, which has caused a deficit in the Executive’s spend, and that continues to this day. That was not recognised. When the agreement was eventually reached, there was no backdating of that level of spend for the Executive. In some of the commentary around this, the financial problems are seen to be as if the Executive is creating them rather than the government in London. At a time of a cost-of-living crisis, the idea to simply use the limited fiscal powers the Assembly has to hike costs on householders through property charges or water rates is absolutely off the wall.

I take issue with a line in Mr. Whysall’s report that states, “At the time of writing, the Executive appears to be holding off from agreeing even a [three]-year budget….[as a means of holding out for] more money”. That is completely false. It is verifiably false. The Minister of Finance has brought a three-year budget to the Executive on a number of occasions. That type of commentary through this report is very pejorative. It laces the propositions in that light. It is all about the British Government having no responsibility other than to hold people’s hands, along with Dublin, and the problems of the Executive being all of its own making. I take issue with that. If the report is presented in those terms with falsehoods attached to it, I am not sure how it is intended to be a significant contribution to debating reform.

Nonetheless, the proposals for reform are continuing. I hope that debate gathers pace. I hope the two Governments step in. We have had periods where both the British and the Irish Governments were hands-off regarding Good Friday Agreement matters. Those were the periods of time when we had the most difficulties in terms of collapse. I hope the two Governments live up to their responsibilities as co-guarantors and get involved in this regard so that we get the necessary reforms to have good governance. I also hope we get the necessary resources to deliver public services for people who have been struggling, not just as a direct legacy of the conflict but as a direct consequence of British Government policy over the past 15 years.

I am sorry; I will not have time for questions, but I wanted to put that on the record.

I thank the Senator. It will be seven minutes per member following that.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Chathaoirleach. I thank him for his indulgence.

There were some questions. The witnesses may wish to briefly come in for a minute or so.

I am not very happy about the suggestion that there are falsehoods in the report. In the latest report, I covered the question of further fiscal devolution. Neither in this report or in the earlier report did we make any recommendations for or against any particular step. We just said there is a need for more debate. In the course of the debate, and I am certainly not speaking for His Majesty's Treasury or any part of the government, the point will be made that Northern Ireland does not tax to the same level as across the water in Great Britain, and that is a part of the reason for the current deficit. We do not say what the right answer is on that, but it is fair enough to make that point. I do not think I have committed any falsehood in the report. I want to make that clear.

I thank Mr. Whysall for that clarification.

With regard to the report I coauthored with Professor Renwick and Mr. Whysall, I wish to pick up on some of the things Senator Murphy mentioned. First, the point about pulling a thread is a theme we address in the report. In addition to looking at how particular reforms in the institutions would affect, say, the likelihood of collapse or inequities in the system or how they might lead to good governance, we also looked at how they would interact with other parts of the system. That is an important aspect of this conversation. If changes to how the Assembly functions are proposed, we need to think through their impact on the Executive, and vice versa. While we do not use the term “pulling a thread”, as we go through individual reform proposals, we assess their interactions with other parts of strand one of the agreement.

The issue of the petition of concern interacts with what Dr. Armstrong said earlier. We know from the report that the use of the petition of concern has decreased in recent years because of two changes that have been made already. First, the reduction of the size of the Assembly from 108 to 90 members, while leaving the threshold for triggering the petition at 30 members, has meant that the threshold has, in a sense, increased. Second, since New Decade, New Approach, there has also been a requirement for two political parties to sign the petition of concern in order for it to be activated, which has also led to a reduction in its use.

Dr. Armstrong mentioned that its use could potentially be reduced further to issues solely related to the ethno-national conflict in Northern Ireland, which is something that has been proposed by others. The difficulty we identified in our report related to how that would be adjudicated. Who would decide the issues that were petitionable? Who would decide whether a petition of concern could be used on a particular issue? That power could potentially be given to the speaker, but that would have drawbacks and benefits. Another option someone mentioned is that it could be tied to the bill of rights for Northern Ireland, which has never materialised. How a further reduction in the use of the petition of concern can be achieved is complicated.

I thank Dr. Kelly. The next slot is for my party, Fianna Fáil, but I am going to speak at the end after the MPs, for fairness of the rotation. I call Senator Kelleher.

I begin by thanking Dr. Armstrong, Dr. Whitten and Dr. Kelly for the contributions, as well as the other academics present, Mr. Whysall and Professor Renwick, who is online. Going back to what Dr. Armstrong said in his opening statement, what followed the Good Friday Agreement and the establishment of the Assembly and the Executive in Stormont was the need to put the violence of the past behind us at a time when there was enormous mistrust. As Senator Murphy said, the need for power sharing was critical to enable that to be successful. It was about bringing people into the room together. That superseded everything else.

Looking back now with the benefit of hindsight, and having moved on and enjoyed 28 years of peace post Good Friday Agreement, that peace needs to be reinforced by the revisiting and evolution of the democratic institutions. I welcome the research that is being done by way of proposals to strengthen those institutions. I would like to hear the perspective of all contributors as to where academics and politics meet in this regard. How well received have been the proposals from each of the three contributions we have heard today among the 90 MLAs and the leaderships of the different political parties?

There is also the opposite, namely the proposals that have come from the different political groupings in relation to reform of the institutions. Will our guests comment on what has emerged thus far?

I completely agree with the Senator's points on peace. As someone who was very young when the agreement was signed, I am aware that I and thousands of others of my generation take for granted the importance of peace and the fundamental role people of all parties and communities in the UK, Ireland and the US played. One of the reasons I was keen to join this programme last year was that it is an American programme and because of the unique role the US played. I do not think there was a better alternative in 1998. The institutions were carefully set up. All three strands and particular things in the Assembly and the Executive were set up in a way that was only possible then and that was essential then. A benefit has been that they have been able to amend it, and the Good Friday Agreement has become a living document of sorts. It has been updated to reflect the times. This is part of the next step in doing that, not changing the fundamentals or scrapping power-sharing, but making it more workable. My paper particularly focused on avoiding another collapse and encouraging a more genuine form of power-sharing.

I want to come back to the petition of concern Dr. Kelly mentioned. There are specific proposals I looked at. There has been previous research from academics at Queen's University and elsewhere which suggested areas in respect of which the petition of concern could be used. I generally agree with that. The first would be issues of obvious ethnonationalist significance, namely the likes of flags and parades and contentious issues of that type what are very specific to Northern Ireland. Another would be reform of the Assembly institutions. For example, there was a proposal to change the number of MLAs or Ministers, as has happened before. That would be another key one.

In terms of the impartial panel, the Alliance Party recently proposed the Attorney General as one option. One example I looked towards was Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has a similar mutual veto for the three communities there. Their constitutional court often steps in as a last resort. We have to look at a something like that, potentially with a panel of experts of something of that nature.

I apologise for interjecting. I do so on foot of the time constraints. There are two other issues I would like to raise, but I agree wholeheartedly with what Dr. Armstrong said. The need to move on from community designation and to have more representative democracy is key. What Dr. Armstrong has proposed are very important steps forward in that regard.

Dr. Whitten mentioned 96 areas of North-South co-operation. How can we best protect the 50 areas partially covered or not covered at all by the Windsor Framework?

My comments will be necessarily brief. When you look at the substance of the areas that are not covered by the Windsor Framework but that are significant for North-South co-operation and in which there is established North-South co-operation, the environment plays a big part. There are also questions around the arts and cultural sector, educational co-operation, police and judicial co-operation and, in that context, things like agreements on data adequacy, information-sharing and the frameworks which, pre Brexit, provided a shared momentum, trajectory and context for North-South co-operation and offered contextual ease. They are no longer inevitable because Ireland and the UK are not on the same trajectory of EU law development. The key is being aware of the potential for divergence and of direct and indirect impacts on existing co-operation and opportunities for future co-operation. It is not impossible to continue co-operation in the environmental, policing and judicial, and arts and culture sectors, but there will have to be more intentional monitoring, better communication and an awareness that there is not the same momentum behind North-South co-operation that there was pre Brexit.

It is linked to institutional reform in strand 1 of the 1998 agreement. In instances of collapse when strand 1 institutions are not operating effectively because we have new potential for divergence between the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland, if we do not have a North-South Ministerial Council operating, we can get growing gaps, issues and frictions that would not have been the case during pre-Brexit collapses in those institutions. It is about linking those new complexities and dynamics up. It comes back to the broader point of pulling a thread. Because of the intentional interlocking of the three strands of the agreement and, in the post-Brexit era, the Windsor Framework and general Brexit effects, it is important to read across the complex picture.

Can I briefly get a response from Dr. Kelly in relation to the feedback from any of the political groups? What has he made of the proposals he has seen to date?

As the Americans say, this is insider baseball. The people who think about these questions tend to be civil servants, politicians or academics. In terms of getting feedback on the various proposals, they are really the only people thinking about it.

The SDLP and Alliance seem to be coalescing around a certain set of changes to the agreement. They were very involved in that House of Commons report from a couple of years ago. The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee produced a report and some members online with us today were involved in the drafting of that. Sinn Féin did not take part in that. It did not make a submission to the committee, but it has recently published reform proposals. The DUP has not set out reform proposals. Generally, there is agreement that changes are needed but disagreement on the particularities of how change would come about and what the exact change would be. There are some calls to move back to the agreement and some calls to move away from designations. That pulls us in two different directions from where we are now.

One of the things mentioned in our report is it would be desirable that this conversation broaden out beyond political parties, MLAs and civil servants to include the public. Coming up to 30 years after the Good Friday Agreement, it is reasonable to say citizens should have an opportunity to have input into the institutions that govern them. In the report, we stress the need to engage civic society and to look at things like the civic forum or citizens' assembly. We do not endorse any particular model; we think about how this can be a broad and holistic conversation that involves as many people as possible. I do not know if Professor Renwick has thoughts on that, as someone who thinks about these things in a broader context.

Dr. Kelly has said it really, but we did research a few years ago on the state of public perceptions of the operation of the institutions in Northern Ireland. Those perceptions were extraordinary negative. Nobody working in Northern Ireland politics will be at all surprised by that. Helping people see their own place in the institutions and how they can affect and influence those institutions would be a helpful step in starting to overcome grievances and concerns that underpin the fact people often feel they have to vote for parties more on the basis of community defence, if you like, than on the basis of good government. If we want to promote good government, it is important to think about mechanisms for getting past that.

Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe. I agree with Professor Renwick. There is an extraordinarily negative perception among the general public about the functioning of Stormont. I also think Stormont is in trouble; it is in major difficulty. Its budgetary situation is quite poor. There are significant cuts on a regular basis to the delivery of public services in the North of Ireland.

The model that operates feels to me like it is the Executive going to London with a cap in hand, looking for a few more bob to be able to fill the gaps within the budgetary system. A delivery of fiscal powers to the North of Ireland is, to a certain extent, the solution for this. I understand that 5% of the budget in the North is raised in the North of Ireland. It is 10% in Wales and 23% in Scotland. Even among those devolved administrations, the North is an outlier in how low a percentage of its own budget it raises itself.

The devolution of these powers is probably the critical issue. The North was given the right to decide its own corporation taxes but that has never been put into place, in large part because of the instability of and lack of agreement within Stormont. For me, corporation taxes could be a game-changer if they matched the southern corporation tax. The North could then put itself into a more FDI-attractive position, especially when many of these companies like to have different locations on the same island.

We heard from Senator Conor Murphy about the difficulties around getting devolution on fiscal powers. I am not sure if the witnesses are able to give their real views in relation to where the blockages lie in that process. Where are the blockages, if they can say? Are they coming from participants in the Executive or are they coming from Britain? Where are the blockages to reform in terms of devolution of fiscal powers?

Do not all answer at once.

I invite Mr. Whsyall to answer.

I touched on finance in my opening speech and am now regretting it a great deal. The answer is I do not know. I do not think there is a consensus at Stormont of the sort that would normally be needed for an expansion of powers of that sort. Unionists are probably - I do not recall. Senator Murphy was saying something of that sort himself. I suspect that if there were a consensus approach in Northern Ireland saying, “Give us fiscal devolution”, London would find it difficult to resist what has already been given to Scotland, which is a right to vary the income tax and a few other things. That does not seem to have been asked for, and the question is whether there is, in fact, a willingness to raise taxes in that way. For the moment, the answer seems to be "No".

I ask Dr. Whitten to respond to that.

I thank the Deputy for the question. I have not researched, in particular, the corporation tax aspect but, from memory, there was a difficulty agreeing between the treasury and the Executive around offsets as a consequence of devolution of corporation tax. That is the specific blockage in making that possible. Legally it would be possible; we just have not had that agreement between central government and the Northern Ireland Executive in order to implement it.

More generally in regard to fiscal devolution, broadly understood, it speaks to a wider conversation around devolution in the UK. Changes in Northern Ireland will raise questions and ongoing conversations in Scotland and Wales, and in that regard, there is something to be said. When the new Labour Government came in, three resets were discussed: the UK-EU reset, the UK-Ireland reset, and the reset between central government and devolved governments. That third one is part of the reason it is perhaps not as simple as it might seem like it should be to just increase that 5% of devolved fiscal devolution.

There is a point to make around local government in Northern Ireland. It has the proportionately smallest budget of anywhere in the UK and there may be something to be said around devolving more powers and finances to the local government level in Northern Ireland, although that would potentially open a whole other can of worms around institutional reforms and multi-level government. However, it may be worth mentioning.

I thank Dr. Whitten. Given the dysfunction of Stormont, if this nut is ever to be cracked, it is going to have to be cracked by the Governments to a certain extent.

The other big aspect around the dysfunction of Stormont is the fact that political parties can pull down the Administration or Executive or refuse to allow for the Administration to happen, and then for the Administration to continue without budgets. Those three elements are cursing Stormont to be pulled down into the future, which creates this enormous instability. I definitely agree with the proposals on not allowing for individual parties to become a blockage, and for the choice to be given to the next largest party if it wants to fulfil that.

Another aspect is the naming of the First Minister and deputy First Minister. What that often does is the two largest parties can marshal their communities to vote for the orange and green around that, and it often becomes, “Listen, you have to vote for our party to stop the other party getting First Minister.” What I have noticed in Stormont is the debate revolves around keeping the other side out or stopping the other side, rather than dealing with the bread and butter issues such as the level of money necessary for the delivery of special needs education to children or the best way to orientate the health system to avoid building up the massive waiting lists that exist for all sorts of things, like cancer diagnostics, etc. The very simple solution would be to have two joint First Ministers to equalise that position in order that it does not become a point of, to a certain extent, ethnic competition.

I completely agree on the joint title. It is something that was obviously understandable in 1998 but it is probably unjustifiable now, given that the positions are identical and, more importantly, depend on each other. If one resigns, the other immediately has to go as well. Those are also great points around the wider depoliticisation of the title. We saw for many years that was one of the reasons the DUP was keen on the changes in the St. Andrews Agreement. In the subsequent elections, they were able to say, “Vote for us or you will get a Sinn Féin First Minister”, even though there was always a Sinn Féin First Minister in all but name. Obviously in the last election the exact opposite happened and that was something Sinn Féin used very successfully. Now that both of them have achieved that, there is a sense that it might not be as big an issue, but I agree it probably will be. That is the wider issue around designations in principle is that you generally see that typical issues in respect of health, education and infrastructure, etc., tend to get politicised along orange and green lines, depending on which Minister is in which Department. That is another reason I was very keen to look at the idea of collective responsibility, because obviously the parties will never agree on everything. They do not have to. The various parties have been in government here, or, for example, in Westminster, when there were coalitions in the past. They are not going to agree on everything, but they can at least sign up to fundamental principles and say, “The programme for Government says we are going to commit to these for the next five years and do what we can, and we can disagree on other things.”

This is a really interesting and important discussion for us to be having. The point was made that there would be unintended consequences if we tinker around with what we have with the agreement, because of how the different strands connect, but it always was designed as a living document, and there is an expectation that it reforms as society reforms. As was noted earlier, it has not all been implemented, as can be seen in respect of the bill of rights, for example. It is also fair to say that there have been unintended consequences of its implementation which have only been borne out over the past few decades.

There is a huge amount of political public frustration with what are perceived as deadlocks in the institutions and people feeling they are not getting a functioning democratic Government. That is leaving a feeling of political disengagement for a lot of people. They might go out and vote, but beyond that, they are not really engaging in a productive, civic way as we might expect. Do the witnesses see a pathway at present in terms of the normalisation of politics away from the designation model and traditional sectarian voting patterns? Do they think that is possible? Is there an appetite within the parties in the North, but also in the general public?

Regarding the petition of concern, Dr. Armstrong spoke about the supermajority approach as another option to address that. Do the witnesses see any appetite for that as a different mechanism? Would that increase accountability?

I would also like to ask about the civic forum, which was supposed to be designed to have more equity in the policymaking process. The introduction of the civic forum is in the current programme for Government down here. Do the witnesses think that would be helpful and would it facilitate greater or wider discussion on reform?

Everyone is welcome to answer any of those questions.

Good clarification.

I think reform is probably going to come quite slowly. It is very difficult to make any permanent changes without a large measure of consensus. That is the measure by which the Good Friday Agreement was reached originally and what the Governments have sought to ensure for any significant changes that have been made since. There is a sense developing now, which most of the parties have responded to, Sinn Féin most recently, that some sort of reform is needed. What is now important is that it be properly discussed. The reason we produced these enormously long papers was to try to get that discussion going. There is a danger, and we have seen this in the past in Northern Ireland, that people will say that they must have reform but what is adopted is a tokenistic and perhaps counterproductive reform. It is more and more essential that any changes that are made be effective and permit the institutions to function more effectively. There are more and more people saying it cannot go on like this and that the levels of delivery we see at the moment are not sustainable in the long term. It makes the institutions less stable and easier to pull over because there are no people saying they are doing lots of very useful things. It is essential that we have the institutions and that we maintain them because the alternatives are all much worse. We need to keep them going, but for that, we need serious debate on what sorts of reform would be necessary.

To echo Senator Murphy's point, this will only work if the political parties actually want to make it work. We can do lots of institutional tinkering, as we have in the past, but it does not have much effect. There needs to be, to some degree, a change in political culture. That is one of the reasons in the latest report I have laid emphasis on developing what I call the independent policy sector, whereby people outside government who are not subject to the constraints that inhibit parts of government from coming forward with policy proposals can contribute to the debate. That potentially has an important role in moving the culture on towards something more constructive.

And Dr. Kelly is online-----

Yes, but I will just make one point. We are here in the South. The role of the Irish Government in facilitating some of those discussions has sometimes seen a hands-off approach based on self-determination and how it is up to the people in the North to decide how things are done. However, I think there is a role. All of our parties have the end goal of reunification. The role of the Government here cannot be hands off in facilitating that.

I will pick up on what Deputy Tóibín was saying about the First Minister and deputy First Minister. It also relates very closely to what Senator Stephenson was saying around the normalisation of politics. In terms of the Executive formation process, it is very important to remember that the original process in 1998 was a cross-community vote, essentially meaning a majority of unionists and nationalists voting for a joint ticket of the First Minister and the deputy First Minister. The St. Andrews Agreement changed that so it was automatically allocated by the largest party and the largest party in the designation that does not have the First Minister. Essentially, that did not change anything for quite a long time but it does create a sort of quirk in the system where the two largest parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP, are in some ways put in a rather unenviable position where they can either go into executive office or the entire show collapses and all of the institutions cannot function. There are proposals that go back to the original 1998 model and there are proposals to go beyond the St. Andrews Agreement and create a new system. One that has been mentioned a few times today is the right to nominate the First Minister and the deputy First Minister would simply pass to the next largest party, which would be Alliance in this case. That does have the drawback of having a First Minister and a deputy First Minister from one community and the others, and one community is locked out of power. It is also sometimes said that we could pass the right to nominate the First Minister or deputy First Minister to the next largest party in the designation, but then we end up with this kind of curious situation where the SDLP or the UUP as the fourth or fifth largest parties in the system end up with one of the top two positions. Some people might say there are drawbacks to that.

Relating to Senator Stephenson's point on the normalisation of politics, another proposal would be that, throughout the system in terms of nominating the Executive as a whole but, in particular, the top two positions plus the business of the Assembly, we would simply do away with designations entirely and move to a two thirds majority vote threshold for everything. We would no longer have designations but because the votes were set at the two thirds majority, we would almost certainly have a degree of buy-in from all three designations in order to hit that threshold. That is not a panacea either. There are important reasons designations were included in 1998 but if the focus was on normalising politics, that might be the route we would want to go down.

On the civic forum, we do not get into our own perspectives in the report on any one set of proposals. The civic forum is in the 1998 agreement, so if we are being led by the spirit and the letter of the 1998 agreement, then the civic forum should be reconvened.

I completely agree on the bill of rights and the civic forum. Both are more important than ever, given there is a lot of uncertainty around the UK's membership of the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR, with two of the five main parties now committed to leaving it. That was a fundamental part of the Good Friday Agreement, and written into strand one was the requirement that legislation should follow the ECHR. Having that protection if the convention is uncertain would be incredibly important.

Specifically on the Senator's question around the petition of concern and the supermajority, I suggested a majority of approximately 60% or two thirds. The reason for that, and the reason we would not need designations any more, is that unless there is a very dramatic change in the next election, the result is likely to be broadly 40% unionist, 40% nationalist and 20% other. The key thing there would be that if there is a vote, and I think it should only be on very specific votes such as the Speaker, it would ensure that there would have to be some input from another community. For example, if there was a vote that had all the support of all the nationalists and others, it would require the Ulster Unionist Party, for example, or at least some of the unionists. It would no longer be a one-party veto. Four of the five main parties could agree on something. The best example of that was when, within a week of the last election, the Assembly met and 62 out of 90 MLAs voted for, I believe, Patsy McGlone of the SDLP to be the Speaker. That included Ulster Unionist Party members as well as all of the nationalists and others, but because of the current system, the DUP was able to veto that. Under this alternative route, the Assembly would have been able to meet two years earlier. Obviously, that is only half the problem. We would still have had the whole issue around the First Minister and deputy First Minister, but at least we would have had the Assembly working, even in a sort of shadow form, and able to progress some matters.

The witnesses are all very welcome. Mr. Whysall said that this would only work if all political parties were on board. Are all political parties on board and if not, how do we get them on board?

In her opening statement, Dr. Whitten stressed that any potential reforms had to be understood within the much more complex post-Brexit context and that changes must be implemented in a way that reflected these new realities. I might open this to all the witnesses. Will they give us a little more detail about what that would look like in practice? For example, if we were to take some of the ideas raised here today, such as abolishing community designations or narrowing the use of petitions of concern, how would those reforms need to be approached in a post-Brexit environment?

On the question of what would bring the political parties on board, they are to some degree responsive to public opinion, as is reflected in the fact that four out of the five main parties at Stormont have now acknowledged the need for some sort of reform.

Interestingly, two representatives of the DUP are speaking in the next week on the subject of reform: Gavin Robinson in Westminster tomorrow and Paul Givan at Stormont this day week, I think. We will see if they also recognise the need. There is more and more criticism, in particular of the way the institutions deliver. The two Governments have traditionally had a very important role in bringing about consensus for change and getting the parties back into the devolved institutions when they have fallen over or appeared to be under threat of falling over. Inevitably, both Governments now have major distractions elsewhere but we make the point in the papers that some attention to ensuring the institutions continue to function and function better and more stably is a good insurance policy, apart from anything else, because they would have a great deal more on their hands if there were a collapse.

In the context of institutional instability and collapse, it is worth recognising the Windsor Framework is a new international agreement that forms part of the UK-EU withdrawal agreement that is very particular to Northern Ireland. It talks about protecting the 1998 agreement. There is a clear link around the institutions. It also borrows from the established mechanisms around the Stormont brake. The threshold for triggering it is the same as a petition of concern. In the UK context in terms of implementing some aspects of the Windsor Framework and subsequent agreements around applicability motions, such as adding new EU laws, it relies on a cross-community consent vote in the Assembly unless the UK Government decides exceptional circumstances apply and it agrees to an addition without achieving cross-community consent. While there are not too many direct links, it is important to note, first, in instances of collapse, post Brexit, EU law continues to move forward and Northern Ireland law will continue to be updated in line with additions and changes in Windsor Framework-applicable areas and not updated in non-Windsor Framework-applicable areas, which is where the North-South dynamic comes in because there is increasing divergence. If we do not have a sitting Assembly and Executive, we do not have means of managing that or it is pushed to a UK-EU level to manage. There is also an important point around capacity. Managing the Windsor Framework institutions in reality requires MLAs at Stormont to scrutinise a volume of EU law change they have never had to handle before. Primarily this is the democratic scrutiny committee. It is beyond just devolved areas. MLAs are being asked to scrutinise areas they do not have direct policy responsibility for. That then feeds into Assembly business. It produces reports and holds inquiries. MLAs can decide to initiate the Stormont brake procedure if they feel the tests and criteria have been met. It is complex but it is about trying to recognise that additional burdens are put on the institutions and therefore it is important to think through any changes in thresholds and designation systems and how that works together with this new architecture that sits on top of the 1998 agreement's existing architecture. I hope that answers the question.

Professor Renwick has his hand up.

I have one more question.

I will call Professor Renwick first and then the Senator can ask another question.

I wanted to come in on the question of how to get the parties on board, which seems to me absolutely fundamental. We have talked about three different motivations for reform. One is good governance, another is overcoming the possibility of one party collapsing the institutions, and a third is around questions about equality between different communities. The second of those, overcoming collapse and preventing veto power, is extremely sensitive. Securing agreement across the parties, which would be necessary in order to get movement on that, feels to me a very difficult first step. It seems sensible to concentrate, at least initially, on good governance and thinking about what reforms can promote good governance. As Mr. Whysall said, all of the parties can see there is strong public demand for movement in that direction. He set out in his most recent reports various further ideas on what could be done in that area. I encourage care in trying to move too quickly in the direction of solving all the problems when it might be better to take a graduated approach that builds confidence in the reform process.

I want to talk about the Westminster and Dublin governments. That will be important. I welcome the announcement this week by the Tánaiste that there will be more work on possible planning and preparing for constitutional change. All of the witnesses have spoken about the importance of political culture, institutional design and the wider North-South relationship in shaping how Stormont works. With that in mind, will the witnesses reflect on what areas specifically they believe Dublin and Westminster could work more closely together. It is really important that they start engaging and working together on some of the issues.

The two Governments probably now have a much better relationship than was the case two years ago. They are working together on a number of issues. They have both been fairly quiet on the question of reform but the Westminster Government now appears to be moving back to it. It has been made public, I think, that the Secretary of State at his next round of meetings with the political parties this month - they may have already taken place, I do not know - was going to raise those issues. I think that is right. The Governments have always been capable of influencing the debate and moving the political debate in particular directions. In everybody's interest, that is an area where they can usefully focus on overcoming logjams.

In terms of specifics, police and judicial co-operation, security and defence co-operation, and environmental issues because of the shared reality of our island in particular will always be beneficial. It is important to recognise that, regardless of future change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, closer co-operation between the UK and Irish Governments is always going to be beneficial for the peoples of these islands because of the way in which we live our lives in a shared reality. It is important to continue to have that momentum behind the two Governments in their east-west co-operation and with a view to enabling better government in Northern Ireland to take place.

On strand three, east-west co-operation, the Irish and British Governments have recently been meeting in a summit format, which is to be welcomed. There has obviously been an improvement in British-Irish relations after the tumultuous Brexit years, under the current Labour Government but also at the end of the previous Conservative Government. That is to be welcomed. The Irish Government has also been establishing relationships with the devolved institutions in the United Kingdom, which is also a positive. The two Governments could lead by example in using the architecture set out in the Good Friday Agreement more often and to more effect. There is the British-Irish Council, which brings together the two Governments and the various devolved administrations, and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, which brings together the British and Irish Governments bilaterally.

Those institutions do meet but it is sometimes said that they do not have a substantive policy brief and that the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference could be convened more often and get into more detail in terms of areas of co-operation between the two states. Running parallel to the focus on strand one that we have today, it would be good to encourage all three strands. We also heard that strand two was not being used to an optimal level. Therefore, it would be good to encourage everybody to fulfil all of their obligations under the Good Friday Agreement and use those institutions.

I thank Senator Black for the questions. Building on what the others have said, there is one thing the two Governments could probably do quite effectively. The best place to do this would be in contingency planning around any future collapse. The reality is that another collapse could happen tomorrow if one of the two main parties resigns the top posts. One positive change we have seen under New Decade, New Approach, NDNA, is that Ministers stay in place for 24 weeks or approximately six months rather than just one week. There is that space, if a collapse happens, where there will still be short-term decisions. Rather than allowing the situation to drag on for years, as we have seen in the past, it would be important that the two Governments use that space to set up the processes to address whatever concerns there are and to discuss practical solutions. It would be better if we had the discussion, as we are having now, when the institutions are working because that is when you are more likely to see some genuine discussions.

Cuirim fáilte rompu and thank the witnesses for their presentations and their contributions thus far. This is a timely discussion, given the growth in this debate and the series of parties that have presented their own proposals, but brought into stark light by the misuse of the petition of concern just last night in the Assembly.

There is a tangible growth in the discussion on reform and it has been for the most part constructive. We are not seeing too much divergence in terms of positions on individual party vetos, the formation of the Executive, the role of the Speaker and things like that where we can find common ground. It is important that, while strictly adhering to the fundamentals of the Good Friday Agreement, we explore those avenues for common ground. For our part in Sinn Féin, we are willing to work with others in the Assembly and Executive Review Committee, AERC, and elsewhere to advance genuine and considered reform of the institutions but we have to take stock and recognise the joint realities that, on many occasions, we are working with unwilling partners in power-sharing that are frustrating progress and we are operating in a dire financial circumstance. We also have to recognise the responsibility of both the British and Irish Governments to play constructive roles in this process as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement.

That brings me on to a point I wanted to make in relation to Dr. Whitten's paper about strand two, which is equally exposed to frustration in respect of the operation of the institution. Strand two has to feature prominently in respect of any reform proposals on the operation of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement and it is clear that post-Brexit future divergence between the EU and the British Government exposes the North and North-South collaboration further. For our part, a lot of our work over the course of the last year has been exploring all-island collaboration on healthcare provision. It is a priority for this committee. I would offer Dr. Whitten the opportunity to elaborate on these challenges and-or potential avenues for mitigation, especially the 27 areas not addressed by the Windsor Framework.

The second and final point I want to make is a broader, but connected, one. It is our firm belief that the best form of government involves decisions about this island being made on this island. Some, if not all, of the witnesses have been involved in some degree of work examining the avenues and consequences of constitutional change on this island. We have seen The Constitution Unit, the GFA-25 and the working group on reunification referendums. Given the evolving political environment since the aforementioned publications were produced, the council elections in the North, Westminster elections, the SDLP's New Ireland Commission and Sinn Féin's The Commission on the Future of Ireland, Fine Gael now presenting proposals on reunified island, the elections in Scotland and Wales, a variety of polls and a growing North-South economy as we approach the tenth anniversary of Brexit and the 30th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, what additional work is being planned on examining progress towards Irish unity? The Constitution Unit's own report stated that it was time for the Governments to get serious about planning on this issue, a Green Paper and a citizen's assembly. I would appreciate an update on any scheduled work in relation to that.

Is that for any particular witness?

No, a broad spectrum.

I thank Mr. Hughes for the question. If it is okay, I might offer to perhaps follow up in writing to the committee regarding those 27 areas because constraints of time apply in terms of going through, in particular, the substance, but there are maybe two points to be made regarding the interaction in strand two with institutional reform conversations in regard to strand one.

You see a real constraint on North-South co-operation during periods of institutional collapse in the North. In the last prolonged period of stasis, the North-South implementation bodies could not really continue their work. They did as best as they could but they were limited in terms of smaller scale things around reappointment of rules and approval of budgets and, therefore, the ability to move forward in the operation of the implementation bodies. When we are considering stability across the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly and good government aims, there are probably conversations to be had about the extent to which North-South co-operation and North-South bodies ought to be contingent on agreement at the Executive level. There are broader questions around a shadow assembly and the ability of departments to continue their work during periods of collapse but we are also aiming to avoid periods of collapse. It is sort of a joined-up question. As I say, I would happily write to the committee, if it was open to that, on the substance, given the time.

Given the time constraint on those proposals, that is understandable. I thank Dr. Whitten. I will call Mr. Whysall, and then Dr. Kelly, who put his hand up.

On looking towards constitutional change, we produced a report in 2021 on border polls. It was essentially about the procedure, namely, if majorities arose, how would you go about that process? The important point to realise is that the agreement says very little about procedure and even less about what a united Ireland would look like and it all needs to be explored. It would almost be Brexit a hundredfold to go into constitutional change without exploring all of these things properly in advance.

We set out in our report a list of the sorts of issue that would need to be decided as regards what a united Ireland would look like. We did not attempt to answer any of those questions, but there is a great deal that needs to be discussed. How that is discussed is really quite a sensitive question. As soon as the Governments start doing it, that changes the politics to some degree. Outsiders should do it, and should examine the agenda comprehensively. It seems to me to be very important. We probably lack in Northern Ireland in particular a capacity for reflection that we need, be it on reform issues or constitutional change. To some degree, the Governments have in the past been in that field but it is much preferable that the leadership and the research should be done in Northern Ireland separately from the Governments so that the Northern Ireland system can start to be more self-sustaining and not depend on outside contributions.

On the broad point about the potential of constitutional change, it is important to note when looking at strand one reform that, in the here and now, everyone in Northern Ireland deserves democratic institutions that function and deliver good governance. Reform is an important topic.

You are looking at why different people from different constitutional perspectives would be equally interested in this. It can be simply put that those in favour of maintaining the Union want Northern Ireland to function while it is a member of the United Kingdom and those that are advocating for a united Ireland will want devolution to be a success story so that, if there is unity and if Stormont is to continue within a united Ireland as a devolved entity within the unified state, it would be functioning well.

Even if we were to envisage a hypothetical united Ireland that did not have Stormont as a devolved institution, as Professor Brendan O'Leary has written about, there may be a need for some sort of power-sharing arrangement in Dublin. All of these questions would still remain live regardless of what Northern Ireland's ultimate constitutional destiny is, and there is good cause for unionists and nationalists to be interested in this in the short term and in the long term. It is important that the conversation is not sidetracked by debates around constitutional futures and that it is something everyone can participate in.

In terms of specific work that is being done, obviously the constitution unit has been involved in a variety of different research projects on Northern Ireland while it is in the United Kingdom and looking at hypothetical processes around border polls. Other work is being done on questions related to this, touching on questions of potential constitutional change. There is the ARINS project convened by the Royal Irish Academy and the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Jamie Pow at Queen's University Belfast and Dr. Sean Haughey at the University of Liverpool have also done some public-facing research, which is public opinion research essentially, on different models of power sharing in the here and now and in hypothetical scenarios where there is a unified state. There is work being done by academics certainly.

I thank our witnesses who have made very good input and I know a lot of them have been ploughing this furrow for a long time. Reference was made to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee work done in late 2022. The Governments were then saying they would wait until restoration and get it addressed then. It is important that we are alive to the fact there are numerous scenarios which would mean the Assembly would not come back after the next election. We can see many ways the ball would bounce and would spook potential participants. This is urgent. It was also mentioned that tomorrow the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee will look at this again, unfortunately not with all parties but with the DUP, the UUP, Alliance and the SDLP giving evidence. Also, because it just came up, the SDLP does not think there is any contradiction whatsoever in pursuing constitutional change in the long term. In our view we are building a new Ireland with a better Northern Ireland along the way. Until people have some sense of cohesion and functioning services, it will be harder for them to confidently choose even larger change.

There was a discussion about proposals achieving consensus, and this is certainly what we have tried to do with our proposals. There is so much that could properly be revisited. We have published proposals on strands 2 and 3 but we have also focused on strand 1 functioning. There is consensus around this. We deliberately looked at three proposals. One of these is that two thirds of MLAs elect the Speaker. This is because, during the last shutdown, this threshold was met by two candidates. We also looked at synchronising the titles of First Ministers so the election becomes less of an "Old Firm" match for months at a time. This has the majority of MLAs voting in favour. While the DUP and Sinn Féin have not supported it, both of them have used the terminology substantially in the past. We also looked at the reform of the St. Andrews Agreement. Everybody at the meeting knows, but it is important to say, the Good Friday Agreement was never designed to be static and unchanging. It has changed in positive ways on the floor of the Assembly through the creation of an opposition and, over the heads of most political parties, by the two Governments, Sinn Féin and the DUP at St. Andrews. The 20th anniversary of that this autumn will be a useful opportunity to revisit it. There should be some comparison of the number of MLAs who say it is the will of a comfortable majority of MLAs to do this reform. Probably more MLAs than were involved in the St. Andrews talks and changes now support reform.

Do any of the witnesses in research have a sense of public opinion on this issue? I know people are not sitting in clubs and pubs talking about strand 1 standing orders but there is a wide consensus that the structures are not delivering, but has anyone done any analysis? Perhaps someone can comment on the DUP positions on reform in the past. In past manifestoes it has made various proposals on strand 1 changes, including under a DUP champions of reform title. Has anyone explored its changing position?

How do the witnesses think the Governments should properly convene? Do they think there is precedent and opportunity to potentially set down proposals and build a consensus around them rather than taking no for an answer? It is worth saying that, a few months ago, people were telling me I was on a hiding to nothing with this, that it is not changing and that it is not going to be implemented, but it has been. I commend Sinn Féin on publishing proposals a couple of weeks ago. That has given a lie to the argument. There was resistance, and it is fair to say that the committee is a classic example of a slow walk by the larger parties. It has been dandering through this agenda for the past year or two, making no progress, but I am interested in the analysis of the witnesses on how the Governments can best capitalise.

Perseverance wins out.

The SDLP proposals are very welcome. All three of them closely align with the recommendations in my paper many years back. It has also been mentioned that Sinn Féin proposed similar solutions. Obviously the parties will never be 100% aligned but it is a great start that almost every party is having this discussion. I want to speak specifically on the question of the DUP because it is something I looked at quite lot in my PhD research and how parties' attitudes have changed about reform and other policies. It is interesting that the DUP in its 2007, 2011 and 2016 manifestos was broadly in favour of a voluntary coalition system. One particular change it suggested was about the removal of designations and moving towards a two thirds majority, specifically in the case of the Speaker and in general. It took quite a different approach when the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee produced its report. Looking at the circumstances, politically things have changed a lot since 2016, not least the end of the unionist majority and the situation where all three designations are a minority with the 40-40-20 thing that I mentioned earlier. Every party should be engaged with it. Even though they did not agree with the report, it was encouraging that its two MPs on the committee produced a dissenting opinion. This is encouraging. All parties should be involved in the conversation and this is one of the encouraging things about this wider discussion.

I want to pick up the question on public opinion on these issues, on which we did some research a few years ago. I do not think there has been substantial change in public opinion since then.

It found that people are very concerned about poor governance and deeply angered by the state of governance in Northern Ireland but, equally, that they are very concerned to ensure that their communities are protected and that the protections in place remain strong and that they are very wary of any outcome that could exclude them from the degree of representation they have at present. We held some focus groups to explore these sorts of issues and to see whether people are thinking about the tensions between those demands. The answer, frankly, is that people have not thought through the fact that these two demands are often in tension. We should not be surprised by that and we should not blame people for that. It is partly because the system is just really complicated and it is quite hard to understand.

It is also partly due to something mentioned by Mr. Whysall, namely the fact that there has not been very much public debate about these issues. In order to develop public attitudes on these issues and enable people to participate effectively in the debate on this issue, it is crucial that the parties and others prominent in civic life in Northern Ireland talk about these issues and, very openly, about the fact that there are genuinely hard trade-offs and no simple solutions. There are hard trade-offs, and people are going to need to get their heads around how to deal with these very difficult questions.

I will keep it brief, because Professor Renwick has touched on many of the things I wanted to say. I would add that in addition to the work we have done with the focus groups, the report that we produced last year contains a short section on public opinion. We see consistent support for the agreement in polling across communities in Northern Ireland, although support is higher in the Catholic community than it is in the Protestant community, which is something to keep in mind. As Professor Renwick said, this relates to the broad principle that something like the 1998 agreement is the best way of governing Northern Ireland in the here and now as opposed to detailed public opinion on what particular types of reforms would improve the system. Opinion polling also shows what we picked up in our in our focus groups, namely that while they believe the Good Friday Agreement is the best basis on which to govern Northern Ireland, there are deep concerns across all communities and sections of society regarding how it fails to produce good governance and how it frequently collapses. I echo what Professor Renwick said. In order to get detailed public opinion on the particularities, one needs to facilitate a conversation with which people can engage. That has not happened so far.

Regarding the question of how to convene the two Governments, it is not news to anybody but is worth recognising that there is a convention that has developed since the agreement was concluded whereby when a period of collapse and stasis occurs, there are general inter-party talks brokered by the two Governments. An agreement emerges in time and becomes the basis on which the institutions are restored. There was perhaps one exception recently when safeguarding the union was the subject of a bit more of an agreement between the UK Government and the DUP. Because it mirrors the original process by which the agreement came to be reached, that is the model for agreeing reform.

As has emerged from our discussion, the need for cross-party consensus is essential and is agreed across the board. However, the key lies in not waiting for another period of institutional collapse. The point being made is really important because it comes through in the opinion polling. As Professor Renwick outlined, there is a real sense of disillusionment, disenfranchisement and frustration. That is not a positive place to be, particularly given the pre-existing divisions in our society on which we are still working. There ought to be urgency. We welcome all of the discussions and work ongoing at Westminster, in the Assembly and in society more broadly.

In terms of motivating the public conversation, this sort of issue is not a textbook option for the use of a citizens' assembly. Some work was done around pilot assemblies on constitutional change some years ago in which I was involved. It can be very fruitful, but, again, we need the Governments to get behind that, and we need support for it.

It is really quite delicate and sensitive. The Prime Minister said a few months ago that the Government was in principle open to any proposal that had consensus. In response to that, the point could fairly be made that proposals for change in Northern Ireland rarely come into the world with consensus already established around them. It requires both a lot of debate and, traditionally, a great deal of cajoling, encouragement and modification. On the other hand, the institutions are in place and the Governments have tended to seek to operate by encouragement and cajoling rather than charging in with rafts of reforms. It is a delicate one but I think there is a good case for the Governments to be raising the issue of the need for reform now rather more enthusiastically and thoroughly than they have been doing in the past year or so.

One departure from that was New Decade, New Approach, where, clearly, the parties were circling around and were not prepared to agree anything. My understanding from, certainly, Julian Smith if not Simon Coveney was that they published the deal and defied them to give two fingers back to the electorate and say "We're not coming back". Perhaps there is space for a similar level of productivity in the area of governance.

I will begin by welcoming the announcement by Fine Gael during the week of the development of blueprint for a united Ireland and what the latter would mean politically, economically and societally. It has announced that Fine Gael will produce that blueprint at its Ard Fheis in November, which I welcome. This is a matter which my party and many others have been suggesting that Government parties need to engage with. In the context of the lack of a concrete vision that people can see, it is very important. Maybe other parties, including Fianna Fáil, might adopt the same approach and bring its resources with regard to its vision and what it believes should go forward, so it is a welcome development.

For this morning's discussion, the starting point must be that we need to look back on how the actual Good Friday Agreement came about. We were coming from a situation where for 50 years, there was a one-party state. People spoke this morning about the idea of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, which, as we know, were supposed to be equal in terms of powers. Again, the idea was to sell it on the basis that Unionists could go to their membership and say, "Oh, we still have the position of First Minister". The challenge is that we are still in a situation where some of the parties in the Assembly do not agree with the idea of sharing power. Unfortunately, that has been the situation. One of the largest parties is still reluctant and feels that the agreement is not its agreement. It opposed the agreement, and some of its members still find the idea of sharing power difficult. That is a big stumbling block.

We had a situation previously where people were discriminated against in the areas of housing, jobs and political participation and representation. We then moved to the current situation. In the early days, it was unionism sharing power with the SDLP. It has moved on and is now sharing power with Sinn Féin.

The concept of power-sharing is abnormal with regard to the architecture that came about but it was necessary. Without power-sharing, I do not think we would have had an agreement and we certainly would not have the positive things that have happened in society, in that we have moved on. We are still dealing with that reality. Some parties are unwilling to participate in our power-sharing institutions, unco-operative and sometimes deliberately obstructive. That is the tightrope, the biggest challenge to any reform.

The report finds that it is unlikely in the foreseeable future to offer an alternative Government. While it may be the case that political arithmetic can allow for a majority government of any persuasion, national or otherwise, unless there is a seismic change in society, that is not going to happen. We are left with this unusual architecture. I think everyone accepts that with all its flaws and all the difficulties, it is better than what was before. We need to remind ourselves of that, rather than people saying it is not working and not delivering. It is delivering to some extent, but not to the extent of the ambitions of those who were involved in the negotiations. Power-sharing may well hinder the ability to govern as effectively as in other parliaments but without it, we would not have an Assembly at all.

The report suggests that the institutional features designed to manage division can contribute to under-performance. However, changes to those arrangements require broad consensus and could unsettle the foundation of the peace process. How do policymakers balance the risk of weakening cross-community protections against the need to make government more effective and less prone to paralysis? That is the big challenge. We have heard this morning that political parties are starting to tackle this and we are trying to put forward proposals. There is a risk that major reform could in itself become politically destabilising.

The biggest challenge we have is that people are still uncomfortable with the idea of power-sharing. That is an indictment of where we are at but it may reflect the society that was there. Parties are still uncomfortable about power sharing. On the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, maybe we can park that, now that we have a nationalist First Minister, and see it as something that is positive. The institutions themselves, if they are not delivering for people, need to be reformed. Everyone would accept that. It is really important that we engage with civic society. That was the weakness of Stormont and the Executive as well, that civic engagement. There was a proposal and, again, some parties were opposed to it. If we can involve civic society and have an ownership of the process, that would be important.

There are questions there, in what I am saying. It is important that we look back but also look forward. That is the challenge we face in respect of any reforms.

I agree absolutely that what we have got is much better than what went before. The institutions, however imperfect, have delivered a system of government that for a quarter of a century, before 1998, eluded us. There are no immediate alternative schemes on the table, whatever you think about longer term proposals for constitutional change in any direction. I cover that in the report. It has to be made to work and it will only be made to work by very difficult, careful, long drawn-out and, no doubt, highly imperfect negotiation. I make the plea that these things are studied in depth so that we do not get something that is tokenistic or another sticking plaster that keeps us going for another year or two. If we can, it is time that we set the institutions on a course to function differently and better. Patience may be running out and getting them back again if they again fall over may be very difficult.

I thank Deputy Crowe. I completely agree, especially on the context and the reasons power-sharing is so important. The reasons it was established as it was in 1998 are key. Part of the problem, and I do not think it is necessarily any particular parties although to an extent you could say there is a wider problem, has been that the Executive in particular is set up in a way that encourages something that is power-sharing in a formal sense but is almost more like power dividing. It has the d'Hondt mechanism, in which each of the parties gets certain positions and certain Ministers, but there is no real incentive within that to co-operate. That has been quite a challenge for long-term planning. The likes of a programme for Government or agreed budgets, in particular, would be a good way to guide that and introduce it to create collective responsibility, which is why I was keen to include it in my report. There are certainly things that all the parties agree on. There are fundamentals. There are obviously a lot of things they disagree on but it is important to have a look at what they can at least co-operate on and, at the same time, have the capacity to run each individual Department. There is a lot to look at there.

It is a really important point to make, to look back and recognise the achievement of the agreement and the institutions that it represents. It is also worth noting in this context of institutional reform conversations that the structures are unusual in the democratic world. The sharing of power in the manner required in the Northern Ireland system is difficult. If we could imagine it being transported across the water to Westminster, requiring the leaders of the two main parties there to agree on anything before it could move forward would be difficult. There would be inefficiencies as a consequence. Part of the reason for having these conversations around how to continue to reform the institutions and allow them to continue to reform is to allow them to develop alongside the societal development in Northern Ireland. We are decades on from the conflict and, while there are perhaps political leaders and sections of society that are still uncomfortable around sharing power in particular ways, it is also the case that a growing proportion of the population does not believe in the institutions at all. That needs to be addressed as well. It is right to just recognise that balance and the tensions there. There is an urgency, therefore, in allowing our institutions of government to continue to improve and better reflect the society of today, while recognising the value of how those institutions have been and how they have served us to date, and their importance.

Dr. Whitten just covered a lot of what I wanted to say, and made the comparative point that decision-making in Northern Ireland can be very difficult because of this system. It is very easy to sit outside of the system and criticise those working it, but they are dealing with an incredibly high threshold for agreement. It is also easy to see how nationalists might get frustrated with unionists, and unionists with nationalists, but that is at the very heart of what the Good Friday Agreement is trying to do, namely, get agreement between people who are in a lot of ways diametrically opposed to one another politically.

In terms of this process and thinking about how a reform conversation happens, it is very important that it is not framed as a way of circumventing the rights or vetoes of any one particular party, designation or group in society, and that we try to think about it as a process that can be as inclusive as possible and allow space for people who are diametrically opposed to one another on a range of issues to participate and come to some form of agreement. That is going to be very difficult but we know from the recent past that it is possible to get agreement on how Northern Ireland should be governed and how the system can be updated and changed. It will be a difficult process but it should be one that brings in as many parties and voices as possible and tries to get agreement among them.

I thank the witnesses. I have a number of questions for each of them on the reforms discussed. There are many of them, and the witnesses have alluded to them.

I hear what was said about the role of the two Governments. Ultimately, though, for those who have to operate in the system, it is essential that they come forward with their proposals. Some have in the past, and some have come up with some proposals currently, which is welcome. The challenge is to marry them all altogether. I am looking at Mr. Whysall and his committee. I do not envy his role because no matter what he does, somebody will be unhappy with it.

It is fair to say that the Good Friday Agreement was the foundation stone which brought everybody together and, ultimately, it delivered power-sharing. Twenty-eight years on, people are wondering, including, most importantly, the electorate. Dr. Whitten mentioned the apathy that exists now because they do not recognise the institutions. The same implications for the electorate as there would be in an ordinary electoral system are not recognised in a power-sharing system. That is a deficit that needs to be dealt with. After 28 years, it is time for proposals to be brought forward. We would hope at this point that there would be a maturity across the board to try to address some of the issues that have arisen and, in fairness, would not have been foreseen back in 1998. It is wonderful that the institutions are still intact.

After all this discussion of reform, is there a way of preventing the collapse we witnessed before? Is there a way of building that in? Dr. Kelly might come in on this aspect. That might be a hypothetical, but I wonder if there is a way of doing it. One of the things that could be explored would be a monetary element for those who serve. Is there a way of ensuring the institutions are kept alive at all costs?

Dr. Armstrong mentioned in his statement that there were proposals for the Assembly and the Executive. The need to ensure that all reforms consider possible implications for other sectors was mentioned earlier. If changes were proposed in the Executive, for example, the question to be asked would be how these would materially impact on the Assembly, and vice versa. I ask Dr. Armstrong to address this issue.

Dr. Whitten referred to the petition of concern. I note what was said about its limited use over the last number of years. Is there a way of reforming it to ensure it is used correctly and on the basis it was intended for?

I referred to the committee Mr. Whysall works under to improve government in Northern Ireland with a programme of reform. What is the next step? I have heard some people say the Governments need to come forward with proposals. There are still outstanding issues, including legacy. The Governments came forward on that. It is, obviously, important to have Government buy-in from the perspective of something as important as legacy. When we are talking about reform, I go back to my earlier point. There are implications for strand two and strand three, but ultimately the main body of reform we are speaking about impacts strand one. How do we now piece together the majority of parties coming forward with reforms and where do we go next with that? Mr. Whysall might start with that, and then the other witnesses can come back in with their answers to the various questions.

I am not part of any committees any more. I am a retired gentleman.

You say that proudly.

I work with the constitution unit, but as a one-man band, not that committees are not delightful. The next steps are much more discussion, as I said. We need to make sure that whatever proposals are made are really effective ones and not just sticking plasters, tokenism, playing to the gallery and things that have unintended consequences. The Assembly and Executive review committee, AERC, at Stormont is taking more evidence and listening to people. That has elicited a lot of ideas. We need a more detailed discussion. I am not quite sure what the mechanism is for that. We need one that brings together people who have worked in the institutions and people with a perhaps slightly more distant perspective.

In the stuff that I have written, I have been conscious that I am at a remove. While I worked in the Northern Ireland Office, I was not working directly in the institutions. That was a very long time ago because I am now very old. We need more discussion, and as I was saying in response to an earlier question, this is probably a gap that we have in Northern Ireland at the moment. We used to depend a great deal on the Governments but they now have other things to do. We ought to develop our own ideas factories and leadership internally by way of becoming a self-sustaining polity, as it were.

Even if the AERC comes forward with proposals, there is still that vacuum that exists as regards how to bring forward both the political proposals and those from the reform committee to the next step.

With no disrespect to the AERC, I suspect it is probably not a body where a great deal political is going to come forward with a lot of agreed proposals on anything tremendously fundamental. That work has to be done.

I thank Mr. Whysall.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and the committee for the invitation to attend. It was a great discussion with the Cathaoirleach, all the TDs and Senators and fellow academics. I thank them for that.

It is a great question, for example, the extent to which specific reforms of the Executive would impact the Assembly and vice versa. For me, when developing this policy paper and looking at the situation more broadly, that is one of the reasons I think it has to be presented as a complete package. In discussions I have had, people often ask what the one most important reform is. There are some that are more important than others, but it is almost impossible to say because, on the one hand, if we look at the previous collapses, we had the failure to elect the Speaker and then, on the other hand, if the Speaker is elected, there are still the issues of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, the d'Hondt process and all the rest of it. That has to be considered as part of the complete package.

While there have been some good individual reforms, and we spoke about the petition of concern and the way it has changed around the New Decade, New Approach, NDNA, agreement and others, some good tweaks at the edge do not resolve the fundamental issues. That is why it is important that, first, various parties - Sinn Féin, the SDLP and others - have produced papers recently that have all been very good proposals. Having this conversation is another aspect. There is also the aspect of having a process or facility to bring them all together. That is where the Assembly and Executive review committee is so important. It is doing a lot of good research, and I and others have sent in our reports. The question then is the one that Mr. Whysall raised: where does it go from here and what is the next step?

Correct.

I think there is a risk when the Assembly falls next year and we go into an election. Is it going to be picked up or what is going to follow up next? These are questions that have to be answered by others, unfortunately.

I thank Dr. Armstrong for his research and for sharing it with the committee. I appreciate it.

On the petition of concern, generally when further reforms are discussed, it is in relation to scope. This includes both what the petition of concern can be used for and coming up with a specific set of issues generally related to the 1998 agreement and the conflict legacy. Of course, we need a mechanism, therefore, to decide who decides what is a legitimate use of the petition of concern within the new scope, if we are going to narrow that scope.

There is another aspect around impact. The Stormont brake procedure, which borrows from the petition of concern in terms of threshold, requires for its legitimate use that MLAs triggering it demonstrate that the relevant change is going to have a significant impact that is liable to persist on society in Northern Ireland. It is possible, in a sense, to read that back into the petition of concern to reform it to require triggering MLAs to demonstrate that the relevant change is going to impact their particular designation in a manner that is significant and liable to persist.

Those are two specific reforms, in respect of further reforms of the petition of concern, and again, this relates to the fact that changing any one aspect of this complex overall mosaic is going to impact elsewhere as well.

Thank you for your answer on that. Now, Dr. Kelly on the avoidance of collapse, if possible. I have left the easy question to the end.

I thank everybody for inviting us to speak today. It has been a fascinating conversation. The short answer is that the conditions for collapse are the same today as they were in 2017 and 2022. The institutions would collapse again tomorrow if Sinn Féin or the DUP were to decide not to occupy the First Minister or the deputy First Minister position. There are, as someone mentioned earlier, provisions to allow Ministers to stay in post for a time-limited period, and we discuss those provisions briefly in our report. We also look at whether other interim arrangements could be put in place, temporary arrangements that fall short of permanent changes, to keep the institutions functioning, but that is again in the realm of temporary, short-term keeping the show on the road rather than avoiding the core questions we have been talking about today. The new status quo is that when the institutions collapse, the civil service essentially keeps the lights on in Northern Ireland. I think there is a general consensus across the political parties in Northern Ireland and between the Governments that that is not a tenable solution to when these institutions are not operational.

Anecdotally, as I was going through this and speaking to people about it, during the last collapse people often said that the conversation about reform should wait until the institutions were operational and not to rock the boat, while we were trying to get the parties to go back into government, by complicating the conversation with discussion of fundamental reform. Now that the institutions are back up and running, you do occasionally hear people say, "Do not rock the boat while the show is on the road. The institutions are functioning, so do not spook the horses by talking about reform." I think there is a lot less of that now and people agree that the time to have a conversation about reform is now, while the institutions are up and running. It is imperative not only on academics but also on politicians and civil servants to engage in that conversation now, while there is a degree of political stability, before the next collapse takes place.

Thank you for that, Dr. Kelly. The positive element of this is that there are parties coming on stream now with their own proposals. Let us hope we can move the conversation along.

For now, I thank each and every one of the witnesses, both those here in the committee room and those who have joined us online, for their time, for giving of their expertise and their opinions on what faces the reform that is required for Stormont, and for being here. I thank the members as well for their contribution.