I thank the Chair, Deputies and Senators. I had been planning to attend in person, but for domestic reasons that did not prove to be possible. I will make a few opening comments, and I think we will all benefit from questions and answers as that is the best way to tease out issues and I certainly welcome any questions from members.
Looking back, 25 years is a long time in one sense, but, in another, it is not that long. The agreement has been regarded, certainly internationally, as very successful and something of an example. Many of us over the years have been asked to speak to groups from different parts of the world in order to explain to them how we reached agreement. It is in the news just today for the wrong reasons. About 18 months ago, I spoke to a group of Georgians who were obviously having difficulties in their country. We have seen some of the outworking of that in the past few days. I have spoken to people in Thailand. Members have spoken to groups in the Middle East. Of course, we know that there is no shortage of problems around the world. Many people certainly seem to feel that it is an example in so far as the agreement has survived. If you look even at the very crude figures for deaths and injuries in the 25 years before the agreement and in the 25 years after, while far from perfect, as we have seen even in the past ten days or so, nevertheless I do take a degree of pride in the fact that there are so many people on this island and, indeed, elsewhere alive today who would otherwise have been in an early grave. If the agreement has done nothing else, it has freed a younger generation from the straitjackets of violence, injury and destruction that my generation and others would have grown up experiencing.
The agreement has gone a long way to settling some of the very difficult relationships, not only on the island but between the islands. Of course, we are always aware of interest shown by our American cousins, who played a significant role in helping us get to the agreement in 1998. It would not be possible to have a discussion on this subject without giving our thanks and appreciation to Senator George Mitchell. I find George to be incredible. He has the patience of Job and put up with us for well over two years. In that context, I refer to the histrionics, arguments, disagreements, boycotts and, in some cases, abuse. He, having had the experience in the United States Senate as a leader on one side of the aisle, understood that to get an agreement that there is no point in having one side of the agreement flat on the canvas, so to speak. He understood that both the participants all need to be able to stand up in front of their respective constituencies and be able to recommend, and deliver, on the agreement. His legal background also was of great assistance to us. It would not be appropriate to have this discussion without making those points about George, who was going through some significant personal issues during the talks.
His sacrifice and that of his colleagues, who formed the panel that looked after us during that talks period, constituted a significant contribution to the process.
Of course, it was not simply the two years of the initial process that led to the agreement. Many years of discussions went on before that, from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, spanning different Governments in London and Dublin. It was not just a two-year period of intense negotiations; it spread out well beyond that. There was one point in the early 1990s - I think it was during one of the discussions in Dublin Castle - when we almost got an agreement. I recall it being the difference between the words "could" and "would". One morning, we were requesting that the Irish Government delegation make a statement that it would change Articles 2 and 3. Pádraig Flynn was the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time. Albert Reynolds had just come in as Taoiseach. Mr. Flynn went away at lunchtime, came back and was not able to do that. He was prepared to say that the Government could do it, but not that it would do it. I rather suspect that had we got agreement that day, we could have settled it. I think that was in about 1991. I might be wrong, but that is the way life goes.
The agreement we are commemorating today and in the coming weeks, is not the agreement we negotiated and about which we had a referendum on both sides of the Border. The strand 1 element of that agreement has been changed, very detrimentally. I made this point at the recent British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Belfast on Monday, when former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was present. I refer to the mechanism that was used and negotiated to identify who should be First Minister and deputy First Minister. In the initial Good Friday Agreement, those persons were to be identified by the largest party in the largest designation and the largest party in the second-largest designation going forward to the assembly on a joint resolution that had to be agreed with cross-community consent. The purpose of that was to demonstrate the partnership model at the core of how we envisaged the internal affairs of Northern Ireland would be run. It was giving political, public and legal expression to that partnership, the message being that one side could not run without the other and they were partners. Both had their hands on the steering wheel. Yes, it is awkward and clumsy from a purely governmental point of view but, nevertheless, it demonstrated that the partnership was at the core. Some parties did not like that.
In subsequent years, coming up to the St. Andrews Agreement, the Blair Government decided to enter negotiations with, ironically, the two parties that did not negotiate strand 1, namely, the DUP and Sinn Féin. The Blair Government did a deal with those parties, without the rest of us who had done the original deal, and changed the law in 2006-07. The net effect of that was that the assembly no longer requires a cross-community vote to appoint the First Minister and deputy First Minister. It is done on a first-past-the-post basis whereby whichever party is the largest, irrespective of its designation, provides the First Minister. The irony upon ironies of this is that Michelle O'Neill would be eligible to be First Minister if the Assembly was operating. Had the rules that were negotiated and ratified by referendum in 1998 been left alone, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson would have been eligible to be First Minister. If that is not being hoist with one's own petard, I do not know what is.
The point I am making is that every election from 2006 onwards was fought by the DUP on the basis that if one did not vote for "me", that is, Ian Paisley, one would get Sinn Féin and Martin McGuinness. That meant we were trapped in the sectarian trenches, unable to break free from them. I had hoped, as had many of my interlocutors, when we were conducting the original negotiations that, over time, we could have seen politics develop more on the people's view on economic divisions and things of that nature, to become slightly more normal. The change in 2006-07, which was done behind our backs, was a major mistake. It is one of the key reasons we are in such a mess today.
Nevertheless and notwithstanding this, despite its flaws - and, some might say, unfinished business - the agreement was a seminal moment. Although some people, sadly, still have not learned the lesson, it has proved conclusively that there is a political way forward for dealing with problems, however complex. Indeed, when we have been looking at the recent Brexit and protocol negotiations, I have often said to myself that if we were able to handle what we were dealing with 25 years ago, surely, it is not beyond people's ability to deal with the matters pertaining to Brexit and its related downstream consequences.
Overall, the agreement has stood the test of time fairly well. A school teacher might write "could do better" on the sheet, and it would be hard to disagree with that, but there are many people on this island who are alive and well who otherwise would not be. We have young people now who have no grasp or experience, whatsoever, of what it meant to be living and growing up in those unfortunate days. Unfortunately, there is a small number of people who have not learned that lesson and who have been issuing disgraceful threats in the past few days, and threatening the families of serving police officers. I cannot think of anything worse. We have also seen a number of incidents in Omagh and other places but, overall, we can take pride in the fact we did something that continues to matter. The question is whether we can finish the job we started, because we still have some road to travel.
