 Thank you very much for that kind introduction it's a great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to you today as your impressive list of former and future speakers demonstrates the IIEA is established as Ireland's preeminent think-tack on European and international affairs as a time when Europe in particular faces such immense economic problems a'i ddweud bod ni'n nefyddog iaith a'r cyfnodau yn diweddol, y gallai yn ei cadw ein bod canthal addysg ychydig yn gandwch y ffordd nhu wledgesenol i gyd yn gweithio cymdeithasol iaith. A byddai'n btwfog efo'r collas rhai o gyrfaedd, gyda'r gymus, cyfansiol a'i chweithio a'r ffinnwys i ni'n ddiweddol, mae ydych chi'n gweithio gael eich meddwl ei ddechrau i'r cyfansiwl syrwyso a'r tyfu i gynhyrch i'r deddechrau ac yn ymweld i ddweud y canhwyntau yng nghyrch arbennig arddangos i'r lleidio'r llun. Fe ddim yn gweithio bydd y ddweud iawn o'r ddweud a'r ddweud i'r ddweud o'r ddweud. Ac ydych chi, dyma'r ddweud i'n golygu i'r dyfanyddio yma i'r ddweud i'r cyflwythrath dda i'r odd, ond nid o'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud, ond i'r ddweud yng Nghymru, ar y cyfrifau o'r Rhywun Ieisiaidio, a i'r teniw ddysgwysu'r ddysgu sy'n Ffraudfa yng Nghymru o'r rhan o Gweithgofynol ac yn ystod o'ch gyflym ymddangos eu rhai ddweud yn rhaid o bob i McDonough. Oedon nhw'n cwestiynau o'r Rhywun Ieisiaidio ar y Prifysgol yng Nghymru, ddiddor i'r llifon i'r ddau'r ddweud o'r prifysgol o'r Prifysgol i'r Rhywun Ieisiaidio. I would like to emphasise how close cooperation on Northern Ireland Affairs over the past two decades has contributed to the very positive UK-Irish relationship, best exemplified by the visit of Her Majesty the Queen here last year. Finally, I shall explain why it's now time to move on beyond the politics of the peace process in Northern Ireland towards greater normalisation and, crucially, the politics of delivery by the Stormont Executive. The United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland have a unique relationship, linked by history, politics, geography, business, culture, sport, travel and family. Even when Ireland left the Commonwealth and became a republic in 1948, she was given a unique status. Today, British and Irish citizens can vote in each other's elections. We maintain a common travel area, something which in opposition I fought strongly to retain and to which the UK government is firmly committed because it benefits both our countries. 2009, Ireland had over three million visitors from the UK, spending over one billion euros, while nearly three million visits took place from Ireland to the UK, making Ireland the UK's second largest source of tourists. Through family ties, we remain indelibly linked. There are around six million people living in Britain who have an Irish grandparents. Here in Ireland, around 100,000 people were actually born in Britain. It's estimated there are 40,000 Irish people serving on the boards of UK companies. The UK remains the largest market for Irish goods, while Ireland is the UK's fifth largest export market. Until recently, we exported more to the Republic of Ireland than to Brazil, Russia, India and China combined. As the T-shirt pointed out in March, something like one billion pounds worth of trade takes place between our two countries every single week. So it's no exaggeration at all to say that the prosperity of both UK and Ireland remained highly interdependent. The UK government recognised that in late 2010 when the scale of the crisis in the Irish banking system became apparent. The Chancellor George Osborne asked for my advice, and we agreed immediately that it was massively in the UK's national interest to help ensure that the economy in the Republic of Ireland grows. That's why we had no hesitation in offering substantial bilateral assistance in addition to that provided by the EU and the IMF. We also recognised the crucial importance of enabling the Republic to trade out of its difficulties. So we have robustly defended your right to set your own corporate tax rates, which were coming under attack from elements within the EU. We did this as a close friend, partner and ally. The blunt truth is that we both need stable, successful financial sectors and we need to reduce burdens on business and barriers to trade if we are to return to sustainable growth. On what I've said out is a relationship in which the fortunes of our two countries are inextricably linked. Britain needs a successful Ireland and Ireland needs a successful Britain. Today, the relationship has never been stronger and two events bear testimony to that. First, the visit of Her Majesty the Queen in May 2011, the first state visit of a reining British monarch since Ireland gained her independence 90 years before. If ever there was a landmark event in the history of Britain and Ireland, it was surely this. Who will forget the dignity and respect demonstrated by both Her Majesty and the former president as they attended sensitive memorials at Ireland Bridge and the Garden of Remembrance? Who wasn't taken aback by the respect that Her Majesty showed for the Irish language in her speech at Dublin Castle? Who couldn't have been moved by her expression of sympathy for those who have lost loved ones in the past and the words in that speech that resonated across these islands? With the benefit of historical hindsight, we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all. Her Majesty was greeted with genuine affection and enthusiasm all the way from Dublin to Castle and Cork. I, myself, saw at first hand Her Majesty's real joy at being here when she came to the national stud at Kildare. The visit was in the words of the Prime Minister, one of those quote magical moments in the relationship between our two countries. And I think it was remarkable what was achieved through that visit and the great warmth that everyone who was there felt. Speaking to our recently appointed ambassador here in Dublin, I know just how much goodwill from the visit still reverberates over one year on. The visit moved what were already good relations onto a whole new level and it was something on which we were able to build last month with Her Majesty's hugely successful Diamond Jubilee visit to Northern Ireland. Second, there was the joint statement made by David Cameron and Ender Kenny in Downing Street in March this year. This was the first genuinely post peace process declaration between our two countries. And I say that because while Northern Ireland formed an important part of it, the vast bulk of the statement covered the economy, trade, jobs, energy policy, possible joint approaches to some EU matters and how we might tackle other global issues. The joint statement sets out an agenda for cooperation over the next decade. It has the potential to produce significant benefits for our peoples and both the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach are committed to meet annually in order to review progress. In addition, the UK looks forward to working closely with you in delivering a successful EU presidency in 2013. Regressibly, the relationship between our two countries hasn't always been like this. All of us acknowledge that Britain and Ireland have had a troubled past. And the fact that we stand here today able to celebrate the strength of the British Irish relationship is in very large part down to the progress that we've made working together on Northern Ireland over the past two decades. And I'm very clear that without our two countries' close cooperation supported when necessary by successive administrations in the United States, such progress would never have happened. So I pay tribute to all of those, some departed, some retired, some still active, who worked so tirelessly to make a reality of what we see in Northern Ireland today. The UK-Irish relationship will prosper even when on occasion we might disagree. Both our countries have a vital shared interest in ensuring that the small number of people on this island who reject democracy will never succeed in setting back the progress we have made. And these people do pose a very real threat, as has been demonstrated by a number of recent attacks, including the vile murder of PC Ronan Kerr last year. So I am immensely grateful to the government here and the guarder commissioner for the unprecedented levels of security cooperation that exists between us. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this and it has undoubtedly saved lives. We're also working very closely with the Irish government on the decade of centenaries, serious events which obviously did so much to define the relationship between Britain and Ireland. In March, the Tishock attended the opening of an exhibition in Westminster Hall to mark the anniversary of the third home rule bill. In May that exhibition travelled to Leinster House where I attended the opening and it will be located at Stormont throughout the summer. My ministerial colleague Hugo Swire was in Dublin on Tuesday to discuss commemorations with Jimmy Dinham. In April they both attended and spoke at the Redmond Lecture in Waterford and shortly afterwards shared a platform at an event to mark the Ulster Covenant organised by the Presbyterian Church in Belfar City Hall. Our joint approach to each of these anniversaries is to try and encourage greater understanding of often very divisive events. We want to demonstrate that one can be generous and respectful towards other traditions without in any way undermining one's own beliefs. Of course the foundation stone of the political settlement we see today was the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 and I shall return to that shortly. I would however like to reiterate the importance of an earlier document, the joint declaration between John Major and Albert Reynolds in December 1993. This helped to launch what became the peace process and set out the parameters for a political settlement. It made clear that only parties committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means could be admitted to inclusive negotiations and it set out the fundamental principles that the future of Northern Ireland would only ever be determined by democracy and consent and never by violence. With the British and Irish governments so clearly committed to those principles backed by the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland it became increasingly clear that those who remained wedi at a violence, Republican loyalists, had literally nowhere to go. It was the joint declaration that led first to the paramilitary ceasefires and then the inclusive political negotiations that culminated in the 1998 agreement. We should never forget that the agreement and the arrangements it set out were backed overwhelmingly across the island. 71% in the north and 94% here. It clearly represents the will of the people in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Since the election in 2010 the coalition government has shown that it will faithfully uphold the Belfast agreement and its successes. We will never take risks with the hard-won progress of the past two decades. And today politics in Northern Ireland is more stable than at any time in over a generation. There is a fully functioning inclusive executive and assembly at Stormont. Relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic have never been better. And the great constitutional issues that divide us for so long are now clearly settled on the basis of consent. As the Belfast agreement makes clear, all the parties accept, quote, legitimacy of whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people of Northern Ireland with regard to its status. And as all recent polls confirm, Northern Ireland remains freely and legitimately part of the United Kingdom. So there is no ambiguity about the constitutional position. Naturally as conservatives that's something that the Prime Minister and I welcome. We believe in the United Kingdom, we want it to endure and we will never be neutral in expressing our support for it. We believe that together we are the greater than some of all our parts. Of course should the view of the people of Northern Ireland change, the UK government is committed through the agreement and constitutional legislation to give effect to their democratic wishes. The constitutional future is entirely a matter for the people of Northern Ireland to decide. And the same is true about how the devolved institutions themselves might evolve. I hope shortly to publish a consultation paper covering a number of areas which might be covered by legislation in the current parliament. These include the size of the assembly, the length of assembly terms and ending dual mandates. We will also be asking whether it's desirable in principle for the institutions to move to a more normal system of government and opposition. And if so, how this might be achieved. As former T-shirt Bertie Hernd said in 2008, there will come a time when that system will suffer because there is no natural opposition. There will come a time where people will say you need an opposition, you need an us and them. Both the Prime Minister and I have said that we would like to see this happen over time. But we are clear that any changes must first command widespread support across the community and be consistent with inclusive government at the heart of the agreement. Northern Ireland's constitutional political stability provides us with an opportunity to move on beyond the politics of the peace process to the issues that really matter to people in their daily lives. We need to focus on the future rather than remain caught in the politics of the past. We need to move from the politics of identity to the politics of delivery. Party politics in Northern Ireland needs to move into the mainstream to focus on predominantly economic and social concerns as they do in Great Britain and here in the Republic of Ireland. How in Northern Ireland do we tackle division and sectarianism that comes at such a high economic and social cost? How against the background of the crisis and the eurozone do we generate wealth, promote jobs, create the wealth that pays for our public services? How do we build a welfare system that is fair to taxpayers, protects the vulnerable and yet rewards work and ends the cycle of poverty and benefits dependency that is far too common in society? These are the kinds of issues that people want to see their politicians addressing. Otherwise, there is a real danger that public confidence in the institutions will decline and voter turnout continue to fall. As the Prime Minister made clear in the Northern Ireland Assembly last year, there are some things that are matters for the UK government alone, some areas that are for the Northern Ireland executive and other issues where we can work together. On the economy, we are working very closely with the executive ministers to pursue our shared objective of ending Northern Ireland's over dependence on public spending and boosting the private sector. At the end of last year, we established a ministerial working group to examine in detail some of the practical issues surrounding the possible devolution of corporation tax. Work will continue through into the autumn before we can decide next steps. The executive itself has an impressive record of attracting new inward investment projects into Northern Ireland. Unemployment remains low and well below the UK national average that we are far from complacent and realise that much more needs to be done if we achieve our objective of rebalancing the economy. In other areas, local politicians face huge challenges and I want to touch briefly on one of them. It is profoundly disappointing that we are still awaiting publication of the cohesion, sharing and integration strategy from the executive. For all the progress in recent years, Northern Ireland remains at many levels a deeply divided society. For example, some 94% of children are educated separately, while separate provision has contributed to a state of affairs in which there are more than 85,000 empty school places. Over 90% of public housing is segregated. The number of so-called peace walls has actually increased since the 2006 National's Agreement. As I've acknowledged many times, given the history of Northern Ireland, this is not an easy issue. Overcoming the legacy of division will take time. Much of this is devolved, but it has to be a priority. A start has to be made and we will support the devolved administration when they have to take difficult decisions. So I welcome the local education ministers announcement only yesterday of a shared education advisory group. We cannot have a Northern Ireland in which everything is carved up on sectarian grounds. In the Prime Minister's words last summer, we need a shared future, not a shared out future. There is a real window of opportunity here. The coalition government has maintained public spending in Northern Ireland. In fact, it's 25% higher per head than in England. In the 2010 spending review, Northern Ireland faced reductions of only 6.9% over four years, as opposed to an average 19% across most of Whitehall. But against a backdrop of the continuing need to bring down the record deficit we inherited and unprecedented pressures on public finances across Europe, I cannot predict what future settlements will bring. So the executive does have a real incentive and a self-interest in getting on with it and I urge them to seize the opportunity. Chairman, after recent months we've witnessed some spectacularly successful events in Northern Ireland. I've already referred to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee visit. In addition we've had the Olympic torch relay, which exceptionally crossed the border to come here to Dublin. The Irish Open at Port Rush, the opening of the new Titanic signature building. The new visitor centre, Giant's Causeway, has also just opened. Next year, Derry, London Derry, or give it its new name, legendary, will be the first UK city of culture. Belfast is the second city in the UK for attracting foreign direct investment. And we've had some economic good news in the past few days with new orders for our largest company, Bombardier, that will boost local jobs. All of this has highlighted a positive new Northern Ireland that is moving forward. UK Government, working closely with the local executive, is determined to maintain that momentum. Nobody is under any illusions that we have a long way to go to build a Northern Ireland that is eased with itself. But with the constitutional and political stability we now enjoy, we have the opportunity to make a significant progress. And the relationship between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, so much strengthened in recent years, will be important in delivering it. But today the UK Irish relationship goes way beyond Northern Ireland. And as the Prime Minister made clear when launching the joint statement of the Taoiseach in March, it's because of stability in Northern Ireland that our relationship has moved onto a whole new level. And the friendship between our two peoples and our two countries are at long last able to reach their fullest extent. Thank you very much.