Ten thousand pounds is the legal value of a negligently taken life of a child or a parent. A cold and somewhat mean-spirited calculation: you would do better if you slipped on a paving-stone and broke a front tooth.

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998 paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.