ARLENE Foster says it is vital to restore “devolved administration back in Northern Ireland”.
In an interview with GB News, Ms Foster was asked if we can expect to see Stormont sitting anytime soon.
She said: “Well, I think everybody would like to have their own devolved administration back. But we shouldn’t forget that on the 20th anniversary of the Belfast agreement Stormont wasn’t sitting either.
“So I think it will be interesting to watch what happens after this very significant anniversary, which of course, everybody wants to mark and see where we can go. We do need devolved administration back in Northern Ireland and I think everybody wants to see that happening on a fair and on a sustainable basis.”
During an interview with GB News, Ms Foster also reflected on the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed 25 years ago.
She said it was important to mark the anniversary.
“It took a very long time to get the Belfast Agreement agreed,” she said. “It took a long time because it’s a very complex piece of work. But since then, people have misrepresented what’s actually in the Belfast Agreement, and that brought us the difficulties that we had after Brexit, and indeed the current difficulties with the protocol with the Windsor framework. But despite all of that, I think people will want to mark the Belfast Agreement. We do want to mark the fact that we don’t live in Northern Ireland with violence and terrorism on a daily basis. “But you know, peace is not just the absence of terrorism. It’s also the absence of the threat of terrorism and unfortunately, we still have a very small number of Republicans that continue to threaten the Northern Ireland peace.
“Over this weekend, the police said that they were very concerned about attacks, particularly on police officers and their families. I think one of the difficulties with the Belfast Agreement and one of the omissions is that there hasn’t been enough concentration on reconciliation.
“One of the reasons why I voted against the Belfast Agreement actually, was the fact that the terrorists were allowed to leave in 1998. But there was very little consideration given to the victims of terrorism and to those people who had suffered the most during those dark days. And indeed we’re still dealing with the legacy of what happened in Northern Ireland.”
