Sinn Féin and DUP Fully
Accept Good Friday Agreement
North Antrim MLA Seán Farren who was a senior negotiator for
his party at the
Mr Farren said, “Nothing fundamental has changed in the way in which the agreement will operate. Instead the St Andrews talks mean that Sinn Féin will soon have signed up to fully support the police while the DUP will enter the power-sharing partnership arrangements within the North and between North and South on an equal basis with everyone else.
“The weeks ahead will involve the parties working intensely to agree an economic package, as well as minor changes to how the Executive should operate.
“With all parties now agreed as to the way forward the outlook is far better for everyone. We can now begin to put the past behind us and plan a future in which sectarianism and community tensions are also confined to the past and in which there are brighter economic hopes for all.
Mr Farren also made special mention of the victims of the past thirty years saying, “As we go forward we must not forget the many thousands of victims and the families of victims who bear the pain of the past. They must now be wondering what was it all about, why some many delays and even why they had to suffer at all. They must be asking if violence and suffering of the past several decades could not have been avoided and the choices now being made not have been made thirty, twenty or even ten years ago.
“As we go forward we have a clear duty to care for those who suffer these pains so that we never ever repeat that madness.”