Letter: The ​Belfast Agreement is in need of urgent modification

Forty per cent of the electorate in NI are young, progressive, modernising, non-aligned, opposed to sectarianism, or a mixture of the five.

I studied constitutional law for many years. I'm no genius. But I'm not a dummy either. The encomia continually delivered to us by the political class on the quality and tenability of the 1998 Belfast Agreement continue to baffle and annoy me in equal measure. It is a recipe for polarisation. Sinn Fèin and the DUP can collapse parliamentary activity in NI any time they want.

A parliament that does not sit is a glorified dole office for divisive, sectarian, antediluvian politicians. The Belfast Agreement is in urgent need of modification. NI is a proud place with a proud history of innovation, modernisation and progress that goes back to the 19th century. It is now trapped in a kind of political aspic. Lough Neagh is becoming a sewer. The brightest and best are still planning their futures somewhere else. The "peace walls" are as high as they have ever been. The centre is being smothered in its cradle by this sacred cow our political class refer to as the Good Friday Agreement.

This is not peace. It is a nervous truce between the future and the past.

Stasis is easy. Progress is hard. Let's start doing the hard thing.

Michael Deasy, Bandon, Co Cork