We're now into the ninth or tenth week, and it does seem to me that a resolution of the issues is as far off as ever. But of course the issues underlying this dispute are really quite complex. And I suppose maybe the optimism that it could be sorted at an early stage…that optimism has not materialised and we're in need of serious, substantive dialogue between the two communities. I mean, there are two basic issues here: there's the issues that triggered the protest in the first place, and there's the issues of how these communities are going to build trust between each other.
As a Christian minister, it must be soul-destroying for you to see the situation develop here as it has been doing.
Well I am certainly on record as saying - and I'm not ashamed to say - that I have stood on this road and I have cried, physically, day and daily. I am genuinely distressed by this, but I am here because I want to try to play my part in resolving it.
Would you see the situation here as a microcosm of all of the ills in Northern Ireland with regards to the situation - the political situation, the social situation here?
Yes, I do feel that very deeply that if you have a long period of political instability at the macro level, at the big picture, then inevitably that is going to play itself out in confusion and acrimony at a micro level. So it does seem to me that there actually is a direct connection between, in a sense, what happens at Stormont and what happens in North Belfast. There is a time-lag between a settlement at Stormont and a settlement here, but in my view there is no doubt of that connection.
