FORMER Loyalist and Republican prisoners have come together to highlight the efforts being made to break down sectarian barriers between Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland.For nearly 40 years leading Republicans and Loyalists were engaged in a conflict that saw them trying to kill each other on a daily basis.Following the 1994 ceasefires key figures began to engage in behind the scenes dialogue to try and address sectarian violence along the interfaces.However, it wasn't until 2006 -- more than 12 years later -- that enough trust had been built to allow former combatants to come together publicly.As a result of those talks senior Republican and Loyalist community leaders jointly formed the Belfast Conflict Resolution Consortium (BCRC) group to discuss ways in which the two communities can work together to tackle social and economic deprivation.This week the former enemies held a joint conference to show the progress that has been made.Loyalist community worker Tom Roberts was regarded as a key figure who brought about the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) announcement that it was standing down in May last year.He admits that building trust was an essential part of bringing former paramilitaries together to work on issues affecting working class communities."None of this happened overnight, it was all about building relationships," he said. "In the beginning it was a difficult process given the diversity of the groups."But there's no point in sitting around drinking tea and coffee and not addressing the issues. The hard work was to find consensus and agreement on how to move things forward and this conference is the first public sign of us doing this."By cooperating on issues of common concern to both communities we can be a powerful lobbying group to support the work of people working in the grassroots who have been the lifeblood of the peace process."Senior Republican Sean Murray said one of the group's key aims would be to develop a common strategy to tackle poverty in working class communities."Initially our work was all about dealing with isolated interface incidents, and we will continue to do that," he said."But we feel the time has now come for us to develop a common strategy to tackle issues such as policing, poor housing and educational underachievement in Nationalist and Loyalist working class communities."It's essential that interface communities are not left behind in this process, as has happened over the last 15 years."Frankie Gallagher was seen as a key figure in the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) declaration last year that it's "war was over."He admits that the process of bringing former enemies together had not been without its difficulties."It hasn't been an easy process. We probably couldn't have done this kind of thing a couple of years ago," he said."There have been some really hard debates but they were carried out in a civilized manner. There are things that we don't agree on, but there are common themes affecting our communities that we can work on."Insisting there was now a need for former combatants to publicly show that they were working together, he said, "In the past others facilitated our common issues and difficulties and we recognize and thank those professionals for staying the course with us."But now the buck stops with us. In war we needed a weak enemy, but in peace we need a strong partner."