Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
1 July 2026
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Committee House of Commons
00:01 - 00:21
Speaker 2
Order, order. Welcome to the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee. This is our first session on reconciliation. I'd like to welcome the panel and ask you to introduce yourselves and for Martin to describe the organization as well, please.
00:21 - 01:41
Speaker 7
Morning, Chair, and thank you for the invitation to come and speak to the committee. Really pleased to be here this morning. The Community Relations Council was established away back in 1990, which is about 36 years ago. It was set up to lead and support change towards reconciliation, tolerance, and mutual trust. And that was at a time pre the Good Friday Agreement.
So it was breaking white clear water at that stage that there was no other organization in Northern Ireland tackling the whole issues around sectarianism and community relations. The organization attempted to be a catalyst for good inter-community and inter-cultural relationships in the region. And they advocated for the acknowledgment of our interconnectedness, challenging sectarianism and racism. Now, that was 36 years ago, and by and large, the same problems confront us today. At this point in time, the structure of the organization has changed.
We are a formal arms-length body of the Executive Office in Northern Ireland. So we're not independent, unlike previously. We don't create, we don't develop policy. That's the job of the department and the politicians. But we can advise the department in terms of whatever evidence base we get from the grant we give and the engagement we have as to how the policy works or doesn't work on the ground.
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