Good Friday Agreement: Use courage and vision of 1998, says George Mitchell

George Mitchell (centre) - pictured with Bertie Ahern (left) and Tony Blair after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement - chaired the talks that led to the peace deal

Stormont's political leaders must act with the same "courage and vision" as those who negotiated the Good Friday Agreement, its talks chairman has said.

MLAs past and present gathered for an event at Stormont on Friday to mark the agreement's 25th anniversary.

They listened as ex-US Senator George Mitchell said they must "do whatever is necessary to preserve peace".

The 1998 deal established Northern Ireland's political institutions and helped bring an end to the Troubles.

Twenty-five years on, Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive and its assembly cannot function because of the Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) protest against post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland.

Assembly Speaker Alex Maskey said: "Regardless of our current difficulties it is important, indeed imperative, that this milestone anniversary is marked in Parliament Buildings by this assembly.

Singers from the Belfast School of Performing Arts performed during the event at Stormont's Parliament Buildings

"As imperfect as our peace my have been, we should not be complacent about how far we have come or about how significant an achievement the agreement was."

In a video message, which was met by applause, Senator Mitchell said he came to love Northern Ireland and its people through five years of negotiations.

Current leaders face updated versions of old problems "as well as new problems", he said.

The agreement in 1998 was passed with 71% of the electorate voting in favour of it in a referendum.

During Friday's event, archive footage of the talks was played, while young people from the Belfast School of Performing Arts sang the 1980s pop ballad You're The Voice and Run by Northern Ireland band Snow Patrol.

Mr Maskey said the agreement was "about the future" and invited teenage members of the Northern Ireland Youth Assembly to introduce the guest speakers.

Fifteen-year-old Jessica-Elise McArdle held a large, framed print of the Good Friday Agreement on the steps of Stormont before the anniversary event inside Parliament Buildings

Monica McWilliams from the Women's Coalition used her speech to pay tribute to the many key players in the negotiations who have since died, including John Hume, Lord Trimble, Martin McGuinness, Seamus Mallon, David Ervine and former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam.

"We know we can't bring those people back," said former deputy first minister Mark Durkan of the SDLP.

"But we can bring back the spirit and the ethic that they put into achieving the agreement.

"That sense of collective purpose; that ability to cut through all the noise of difference and create shared institutions and shared arrangements."

'We got there in the end'

Lord Empey of the Ulster Unionist Party said the agreement was not perfect and many people opposed some of its content on moral grounds.

But he added: "The one thing that stands out about this agreement, amongst others, is the fact that it was endorsed by the people before it was implemented.

"That gave it a strength and a legitimacy which very few others have."

Billy Hutchinson of the Progressive Unionist Party said the anniversary was about reflection.

He joked that he was a poor substitute speaker for the late David Ervine, one of his predecessors as PUP leader, who he said was missed in modern Stormont politics.

"I've the greatest respect for all those people who took part.

"[I] didn't necessarily agree with everybody's politics but what I did agree with that we were all moving in the same direction and we got there in the end."

Former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said: "We're all in a better place and despite current challenges the future is bright.

"If you doubt that, think of the countless lives which have been saved or reflect on events in other parts of the world."

Former Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern said he wanted to remember "all of those who our work came a bit too late for".

"Those who died, those who were injured, those who suffered in any way during the years of the Troubles - we always remember them and always respect what their huge loss has been."