Peace cannot be built on exclusion. That has been the price of the past 30 years.

I stopped buying Sunday papers about 15 years ago, because you'd buy handfuls of them, and what you got, because the hard news comes from so many other channels, was opinion pieces. You're better off spending the money on a good novel.

The last months, weeks and days have seen accelerating discussions, involving the DUP for the first time, about a comprehensive agreement which would see all outstanding matters dealt with and the Good Friday Agreement implemented in full.

I nominate the Reverend Ian Paisley for the position of First Minister of northern Ireland

I was leaving the Belfast court, where I had been called to answer a very flimsy charge, later dismissed. You're relatively safe in such areas in the Irish community, but to go to downtown Belfast for me is dangerous. My appearance in court had been well advertised by the police. I think it was too much of a coincidence that the people who shot me were just passing by.

You can only judge anything that happened in the times, in the times that that happened.

There can be no such things as an Irish nationalist accepting the loyalist veto and partition. You cannot claim to be an Irish nationalist if you consent to an internal six county settlement and if you are willing to negotiate the state of Irish society with a foreign government.