I would like to thank the US Ireland Alliance for the opportunity to participate in this symposium to mark the tenth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
The Good Friday Agreement represents a watershed in the history of this Island. It heralded a new era in relations within Northern Ireland between North and South and between Ireland and Britain. From the summer of 1997 when we took up office, Tony Blair and I believed that we could, together with the political parties revitalise the peace process. We worked intensively with them until we were able to get to a point where we could make a final push for agreement. Our efforts culminated with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998.
To get to that point required courage and vision from the party leaders. We were assisted by the able Chairmanship of Senator George Mitchell and the support of President Bill Clinton, support which continued through President Bush’s administration, and with the help of all our friends in the US. We also had significant underpinning of the Agreement through generous support from the European Union to the cause of building peace and reconciliation on this island.
Some of those who were central to the process are no longer with us – Mo Mowlam and David Ervine made enormous contributions and are sadly missed.
Others including John Hume and David Trimble, who led their negotiating teams, took enormous risks for peace and were rightly honoured as Nobel Peace Prize winners. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness showed great leadership in bringing their movement with them, first to the negotiating table and ultimately to the centre of the new power-sharing administration in Belfast.
In later years, Dr Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson and others in the DUP showed equal vision and leadership in negotiating and then implementing the St Andrews Agreement that led to the restoration of the institutions and the hugely positive situation we all enjoy today.
And of course, John Alderdice, Monica McWilliams, General De Chastelain and many others have continued to make significant contributions in various capacities right up to the present day.
In the period up to 1998, we were fortunate to build on foundations laid by our predecessors over many years – the work of John Major and Albert Reynolds helped bring about the IRA ceasefire in 1994.
I knew that the negotiations would be protracted and that it would take enormous commitment from all sides. There were difficult decisions to be made – for example on prisoner releases and we knew that unionists were sceptical about the North South agenda. But I felt that the Agreement addressed everyone’s concerns and that we had the balance right to get agreement.
The strength of the Agreement is that it provides us with a truly comprehensive framework that tackles the big issues of identity and allegiance. It provides us with institutional arrangements that can support the key relationships on these islands and new institutions that address the historic legacy of alienation from the State.
After the Agreement, I can well recall Senator Mitchell noting that there would have to be a lot of effort, in good faith, for a long time, to achieve the goals of this Agreement. It is a major achievement that we now have a stable political process and political institutions and that the vast majority of people have confidence in those institutions.
Under the Agreement we have seen incredible change - the formal ending of the IRA campaign of violence and verification that it had decommissioned the ‘totality of its arms’, the demilitarisation of the Northern Ireland landscape - but no change was more momentous than in 2007. Following the St Andrews Agreement, the inclusive power-sharing institutions in Northern Ireland, the Assembly and Executive, were restored last May and have been working since then to address the day-to-day concerns of the people. We have a police service in Northern Ireland that, for the first time, has the support of all parties and all communities.
The North-South Ministerial Council and North/South Implementation Bodies are back working effectively as we always envisaged they would. I was proud to lead our Ministerial team at the North South Ministerial Council Plenary meeting in July last year. It was the first occasion in over five years for Ministers on both sides to sit around a table together, and we had a genuinely open and wide-ranging discussion. We intensified our deliberations in Dundalk in February, looking at issues that affect our all-island economy.
Last April, I had the pleasure of welcoming First Minister Dr. Ian Paisley to Farmleigh, where we shared a historic handshake, and also in May when Dr. Paisley visited the site of the Battle of the Boyne.
North/South Co-operation has developed on a very practical level with our latest National Development Plan including joint investment in strategic projects of mutual benefit to both jurisdictions. We are also continuing to develop the relationship with our nearest neighbour in a whole range of ways including through the British-Irish Council, established under the Good Friday Agreement to foster East/West links.
The relationship between Britain and Ireland has been transformed and last year I was honoured to address the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. We are also assisting the Northern Ireland Executive in every way we can as it prepares to re-position on the global stage ahead of the US Investment Conference next month. The British and Irish Governments are determined to support Northern Ireland on the path to economic success, as we supported it on the path to political agreement.
There are a range of strategic North-South projects underway. The joint investment in the road to Derry and Letterkenny, and Belfast to Larne, and the launch of a Single Electricity Market for the island, are prime examples of how we are working together to the greater benefit of the whole Island.
The two administrations also reached agreement on the terms of a new Innovation Fund, which Northern Minister Peter Robinson announced in his budget statement, and which will include funding for cross-border research and innovation. The Irish Government will contribute €60m to this fund.
In the areas of Health and Education, we can see great potential for further co-operation to realise greater economies of scale for the services that we provide on this island. Studies are underway by both Departments into how we can move forward in these sectors.
Tourism is another area where we can continue to work together for mutual benefit. There has been dramatic growth in visitor numbers to all parts of the island since 2001 and Tourism Ireland is doing a very effective job in promoting the Island of Ireland in a very competitive market. Other bodies such as InterTrade are doing important work to promote and develop the all-Island economy.
Both North and South face similar economic challenges into the future, with the need to improve competitiveness in the face of increased globalisation. It is in all our interests to identify ways in which we can promote and develop the economic interests of the whole Island.
There is no doubt that the business of North/South Co-operation is a dynamic and evolving one. Under the St. Andrew’s Agreement, the NSMC is committed to reviewing the existing implementation bodies and to looking at the case for additional bodies and areas of co-operation within the NSMC.
This work is well underway and I look forward to the outcome of that at the next Plenary meeting in the Autumn. We have already had a very positive development in the appointments of new members to the Boards of the North-South Bodies by the Northern Ireland Executive and by my Government.
Work remains to be done including the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Executive. Civic society has an important role to play and formal structures are required to enable it to contribute to its potential.
We value the unionist tradition of this island and we need to engage people, North and South, on our shared heritage. In recent times much has been achieved in building positive relationships on all sides – between the political parties in Northern Ireland and between the two administrations North and South. I have no doubt that we will continue to build on these relationships and that they will be central to allowing us to tackle difficult issues in the future and violence will have no part to play in determining that future.