THE events of the past week have highlighted again that too many in positions of leadership simply focus on the problems faced by our society without committing themselves to the proven solutions. While it is an absolute that we have to share the future, we can either do so in the way that we have done in the past and which led to more than 3,600 deaths, thousands injured and deep societal divisions or we can commit ourselves to a genuinely shared and constructive future, where we work and live together in peace and stability.
What has been missed in recent days is that the proven solutions to the problems are sitting there to be implemented. They have already been tried and tested - albeit often on a small scale - and shown to work. With proper leadership, particularly from our political classes but wider civic society as well, actions could be rolled out that would greatly assist in bringing long-term stability.
Then in such an improving environment it may enable us to deal with the problem that will be most difficult to face and that is how we deal with our past in a way that ensures such tragedy never happens again.
TREVOR RINGLAND NI Conservatives, Belfast
