Northern Ireland

Live: Clintons, Blair and Ahern at Good Friday Agreement event in Belfast

(left to right) Former US president Bill Clinton, Senator George Mitchell, Hillary Clinton and former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, attending the three-day international conference at Queen's University Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Picture by Liam McBurney/PA Wire
(left to right) Former US president Bill Clinton, Senator George Mitchell, Hillary Clinton and former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, attending the three-day international conference at Queen's University Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Picture by Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said Northern Ireland's parties need to sit down together to work out how to bring back the Stormont institutions.

Mr Ahern was speaking during the Agreement 25 conference, a three-day event at Queen's University Belfast where politicians will discuss the creation and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in the month of its 25th anniversary.

"I think the single most important thing is people need to sit down and just agree how they are going to do it," the former taoiseach said.

"We dealt with huge issues, we were trying to deal with the constitutional issues, trying to set up the institutions, reforming the old RUC ... demilitarising Northern Ireland, changing all the legislation that was there because of years of the conflict.

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"Now what you need is to find a mechanism where the institutions can set up and then I think there should be discussion, whether you call it review or not, of how to make sure they don't come down again except when their term of office is fulfilled.

"That requires parties to sit down, mainly the DUP but I'm sure other parties are all willing to help them to get across that road.

"The sooner the better. The one thing that concerns me is that status quos don't work."

He added: "You can't wait around forever. You can't have elections to institutions a year ago and then nothing happens."

Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who is hosting the Agreement 25 conference as part of her role as chancellor at Queen's University, urged current politicians to move forward with "the same spirit of unstoppable grit and resolve" as their predecessors had done.

Ex-US president Bill Clinton and former British prime minister Tony Blair are also scheduled to participate in the three-day event, 25 years on from the landmark accord.

Former US senator George Mitchell, who chaired the negotiations in 1998, said the Good Friday Agreement set an example for peace around the world, and urged people in the north not to let it "slip away".

Making the keynote address at the opening of the conference, Mr Mitchell said: "Twenty-five years ago the people of Northern Ireland and their leaders changed the course of history.

"It was a day when history opened itself to hope.

"The people of Northern Ireland supported, worked for and established a democratic, peaceful process as their preferred form of governance.

"They overwhelmingly rejected political violence as a way to resolve their differences.

"If history teaches us anything, it is that history itself is never finished.

"On the evening the agreement was reached, I commended the men and women who wrote and signed it, but I also said it would take other leaders in the future to safeguard and extend their work.

"And so it has.

"I am here, with many others, to sound that bell one more time."

Mr Mitchell said the peace deal was not perfect, but called on the current and future leaders of Northern Ireland to act with "courage and vision".

He said: "To find workable answers to the daily problems of the present, to preserve peace.

"To leave to the next generation peace, freedom, opportunity and the hope of a better future for their children."

Mr Mitchell recalled telling the politicians to "please say yes" when the final document was put together.

"I said to them 'Virtually every word in this document has been spoken or written by someone from Northern Ireland.

"'This is your opinion. It is of necessity a compromise. It does not resolve every issue. There is much in it that you will not like.

"'There is much you will like. This is the end. Now you must decide'. And I asked each of them, 'Please say yes'," he said.

George Mitchell said he continues to receive treatment for leukaemia and his ability to function has been "severely diminished".

He said this is the first time in three years he has spoken at a major public event.

Mr Mitchell said he and his wife Heather "love" Northern Ireland.

Concluding his speech, Mr Mitchell said: "We need people who believe, who know, that the possible does exist within the impossible.

"Don't let it slip away."

Mr Mitchell was given a sustained standing ovation after he finished speaking.