I will intervene for a few seconds. The issue is that because the “talks” and “negotiations” have been notoriously unsuccessful over the last couple of years, there has to be some form of structure—although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that it has to be on a very restricted number of issues, otherwise you go back to a Good Friday agreement mark 2, and we do not want that. You want to work within the agreement but have some sort of structure. If there is a person who could organise that structure and be acceptable to all the parties, I see nothing wrong with that. I understand that if you expand it beyond the current issues, that could be difficult. However, there are a number of issues beyond those the noble Lord, Lord Empey, mentioned—for example, the Irish language and equal marriage. All those things can be on the table, but it is about getting some form of structure which simply does not exist at the moment. Anything that could help that would be useful.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Murphy of Torfaen
(Labour)
in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 30 October 2018.
It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL)
and
Debate on bills on Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
793 c1303 
Session
2017-19
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2018-10-31 13:55:55 +0000
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