It is a great pleasure to be back here at the BIA, and to have the opportunity to reflect upon the UK-Ireland relationship with all of you, and thank you, Dominic and Francesca, for the invitation and for all that you do to nurture this really important institution.
It has certainly been an eventful 12 months since last we met.
Continuing war in Ukraine. The unfolding disaster in Gaza. The climate continues to warm. A new partnership between the UK and the EU. And a new President of the United States of America.
But one thing that hasn’t changed has been the growing warmth of the relationship between our two countries.
Simon, I want to say how grateful I am for the friendship and enthusiasm with which you – and the whole Irish Government – have embraced not only the reset in the relationship between our two countries, but built on it with trust, honesty and ambition.
And nowhere has this been more evident than on the issue of legacy, which you and I have discussed at length in all of its complexity, and to which I shall return later on.
You know as well as anyone the Prime Minister’s personal commitment to our partnership – a commitment shared by the Taoiseach – and it was a great pleasure to be at the first of the new UK-Ireland Summits in Liverpool in March.
I was reminded then of the poetic words of President Higgins – whose extraordinary public service we applaud as he prepares to leave office – who said on his 2014 state visit to Britain that the UK-Ireland relationship had progressed from ”the doubting eyes of estrangement… to the trusting eyes of partnership and, in recent years, the welcoming eyes of friendship”.
We are, indeed, today the closest of friends as well as the closest of neighbours.
The UK Government has also, of course, been working to reset our relationship with our European partners.
As part of this, we remain steadfastly committed to the full and faithful implementation of the Windsor Framework.
Not because it is perfect, but given our departure from the EU, the open border, and two entities with two different sets of rules, we had to find together with the EU a means of dealing with a unique challenge, and the Framework was the pragmatic result.
And over the past year, we have continued to try together to ease the flow of goods within the UK internal market by
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removing unnecessary customs paperwork;
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setting out our plans to safeguard the supply of veterinary medicines;
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and working to protect consumer choice in the final phase of ‘Not for EU’ labelling.
And of course the biggest prize from our commitment to rebuild trust and partnership has been the Common Understanding announced in May between the UK and the EU – our largest and closest trading partner.
What a contrast with the breaking of promises and the threatening to rip up international agreements of recent years.
An SPS agreement in particular will make a big difference once it is implemented.
It will remove the checks and procedures on animal and plant products moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland – as well as making it easier for businesses across the UK to export to the EU.
This matters for practical economic reasons.
But it also matters to the sense of Northern Ireland’s integral place in the United Kingdom.
And following the publication yesterday of the independent review of the Windsor Framework carried out by Lord Murphy, the Government will of course now give full consideration to his findings and recommendations.
We have also worked to try and reset relationships with the Northern Ireland Executive.
I want to pay tribute to Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly, and to all of the Executive Ministers, for what they have achieved in the 19 or so months since power-sharing was restored.
They have worked constructively together and agreed an ambitious Programme for Government, published a Fiscal Sustainability Plan, brought forward a strategy to end violence against women and girls and a childcare and early learning plan, allocated the first £129m of ringfenced funding from the UK Government for public services transformation, and announced a three-year strategic plan for health and social care, to start getting on top of the long-standing crisis in the health and care system.
There is, of course, so much more to do, whether its on health waiting lists, water quality in Lough Neagh, or the constraints on growth that come from an overloaded waste water system or slow planning decisions.
But there have also been some depressing developments. The disorder and racist thuggery – let’s call it out for what it was – we saw in Ballymena and other towns this summer was despicable, and has no place whatsoever in Northern Ireland or anywhere else in the United Kingdom. When people feel they have to put signs or flags in their windows in hope that this will stop them from being smashed then something is terribly wrong.
We all have a duty to speak out and I greatly welcome the strong statement agreed at the Northern Ireland Executive meeting yesterday condemning racist and sectarian attacks.
The Government is providing £137 million in continued funding to tackle terrorism, paramilitarism and organised crime. The threats are changing and more than ever we have to work together to meet them.
Paramilitarism remains a scourge on Northern Ireland society, and following our agreement earlier this year, the Tánaiste and I will soon jointly appoint an Independent Expert to scope the prospects for paramilitary group transition to disbandment. I know that not everyone agrees with that decision – of course paramilitaries should have left the stage long ago – but the fact is they’re still here and still causing harm to communities.
As demand for more and better public services continues to increase and pressures grow on the public finances of governments across the world, in these straitened times, all of us know that we need to raise revenue – and spend it as effectively as possible – if we are going to deliver on our commitments.
This Government is clearly showing our support for Northern Ireland through continued and significant investment.
At the Spending Review the Chancellor announced a record funding settlement of £19.3 billion per year through this Parliament – the biggest since devolution.
This will ensure that Northern Ireland continues to be funded above its level of relative need. And it has ended the prospect of a financial cliff-edge in 2027, which had been left hanging over Northern Ireland by the previous government.
With its unique strengths in cyber and AI, in green technologies, in the creative industries and in defence manufacturing, Northern Ireland has so much to offer.
That is borne out in our modern industrial strategy, and the forthcoming defence industrial strategy.
It is reflected in the £310 million the UK is investing in Northern Ireland’s City and Growth Deals, the deal announced by the Prime Minister in March to supply Ukraine with more than 5,000 air defence missiles from Thales, and in the £30m investment we announced last month for Northern Ireland’s science and tech sectors and Local Innovation Partnerships Fund, £2m for Queens University Belfast’s Cyber AI Hub and £46m a year to fund Local Growth.
And at the first meeting of the East West Council under this Government in June I announced the Connect Fund, which will award up to £1 million to strengthen collaboration between community groups in Northern Ireland – whose work is so important and so valuable – with their community organisations in Great Britain.
These are all further examples of this Government’s commitment to Northern Ireland’s future.
And I hope that PM the £50m investment by the UK Government in the redevelopment of Casement Park, alongside the investments we continue to make in football, rugby and other sports in Northern Ireland will now enable progress to be made on both the GAA stadium and the sub-regional stadia programme for football. And of course we have the enticing prospect of Northern Ireland being part of the UK’s bid for the 2035 Women’s World Cup.
In the same spirit of partnership, the new Irish Government has shown its continued commitment to infrastructure development and tourism in the border regions through the Shared Island Fund, with a welcome €50 million in new funding announced earlier this year.
All of this means that the Executive has what I think is an unprecedented opportunity ahead of it to build on the positive start it has made and to do the hard work of reforming public services, generating further investment and improving the lives of all the people of Northern Ireland.
Now, it shouldn’t need to be said, but [political content redacted] let me be absolutely clear that this Government’s commitment to the Good Friday Agreement – in its entirety – is unwavering and absolute, and I know that is shared by the Irish Government as co-guarantor with us.
The Agreement on that miraculous Good Friday brought an end to three decades of appalling violence in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom.
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To try and unpick the Good Friday Agreement would not only be dangerously irresponsible but would also disrespect all those who sacrificed so much to help bring about the peace that the people of Northern Ireland – and across these shared islands – now enjoy.
The GFA, as Nancy Pelosi once said in a speech to the Dáil, a “beacon to the world”.
And it is with that in mind that I am greatly looking forward to welcoming foreign ministers from the Western Balkans, alongside other European friends and partners, not least yourself, Simon to Hillsborough Castle in October, as part of the UK’s hosting of the Berlin Process, which promotes prosperity, security and reconciliation in South-Eastern Europe, specifically the former Yugoslavia.
At home and abroad, let us continue to talk about our countries’ shared experience and pass on the lessons we have learned to the next generation.
Which brings me to the legacy of the Troubles.
Helping bereaved families to get answers about the deaths of their loved ones ultimately proved to be beyond the architects of the Good Friday Agreement.
But they knew it needed to be done.
They said ”The participants believe that it is essential to acknowledge and address the suffering of the victims of violence as a necessary element of reconciliation.” But they couldn’t quite get there, given everything else they had to deal with.
Everyone in this room knows that there have been numerous attempts at fulfilling this promise but I’ve met a lot of people who are still waiting for those answers. Their voice above all needs to be heard in the current debate.
The 2014 Stormont House Agreement, negotiated by the Conservative-led coalition government and the Irish Government, came close, with its commitment to an independent Historical Investigations Unit and a separate, joint information recovery body.
But in the years that followed, the political courage required to deliver on that agreement dissipated.
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That legislation was rejected across Northern Ireland, a number of its provisions have been ruled against by the Northern Ireland courts, and this Government came into office committed to repeal and replace it.
The independent Commission, that was created by the Act, now has a growing caseload – including some of the most high profile terrorist murder cases from those awful times, like the Guildford pub bombing and the Warrenpoint ambush.
But it is clear that the Commission in its current form does not command enough confidence in Northern Ireland. So, if it is to be successful, it urgently needs significant reform.
I have always said that I want a legacy process that is capable of commanding support across all communities. And it has always been my view, and that of the Prime Minister, that – if at all possible – this should be a shared endeavour with the Irish Government, with reciprocal commitments from both sides.
That remains the objective of the agreement with Ireland that we have been working on. And I would say we are now close to being in a position to announce that.
I have already set out many of the things that we intend to do, building on the principles of the Stormont House Agreement and drawing on the lessons from Operation Kenova.
A reformed, independent and human rights compliant Legacy Commission that gives families the best possible chance of finding answers, with investigations capable of referring cases for potential prosecution where evidence exists of criminality.
A new oversight body for the Commission, a Victims Panel as in Kenova, public hearings and representation for families.
The maximum possible disclosure of information, in line with the disclosure process for public inquiries.
The potential for a separate information recovery body, as envisaged by Stormont House and the subsequent treaty between the two governments.
The resumption of a number of inquests that were prematurely halted by the Legacy Act.
And – for the UK Government’s part – protections to ensure that anyone who served the State in Northern Ireland to keep people safe and who is asked to participate in a legacy process as a witness is treated with dignity and respect.
Most of us here lived through the Troubles, in my case at a distance but not for many of you. I remember watching the reporting on television and reading about terrible events in the newspapers, and like you I despaired.
But unless we went through the experience, none of us will ever fully be able to appreciate what was – and still is – felt by those people who lost dearly loved family members, but who have never been able to find answers about what happened to them.
Answers that have been hidden for too long. Answers that some people may not like. Answers that are uncomfortable or shocking or a painful reminder of grim times and brutal deeds.
Great Hatred Little Room, Jonathan Powell’s account of the Northern Ireland peace process, concludes with these words
“The burden of history remains, and before the two sides become truly reconciled they need to find a way to deal with the past…. If I have one wish, it is that the people of Northern Ireland find an acceptable way to lay the past to rest.”
How right he was. But I am under no illusions. This is difficult. It remains highly contentious. Different views are understandably and passionately held. And the pain and the trauma still run deep.
We all know that a perfect outcome is not attainable – not everyone is going to get everything they want – remembering that wonderful quote in the Ulster Museum Troubles exhibition. ‘We have a shared past, but do not have a shared memory’.
But I am also certain that, with trust in each other and with continued resolve, we can find a way forward to deliver on the unfinished business of the Good Friday Agreement and put in place our best chance to acknowledge and address the suffering of the victims of the violence as we seek to find answers for all.
So as our two countries turn to face the future, let us neither be burdened by the past, nor turn our backs upon it.
A way forward is now within our grasp and that is why we must find the courage to do this, and do it now.
ENDS
