(17 Apr 2023)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Belfast - 17 April 2023
1. Various of former president of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, speaking during interview at Queen's University, Belfast
2. Cutaway pin of Irish Easter Lily
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Gerry Adams, former president of Sinn Fein:
"It (the Good Friday Agreement) was never a destination. It was an agreement to a new journey, to a new way forward without agreement on the destination. There's a lot of work to be done. So it's, it's a very important step. There's a sea change in our affairs predicated upon that agreement. But we've still a lot to do."
4. Wide of Adams speaking
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Gerry Adams, former president of Sinn Fein:
(Asked about questions regarding reopening the agreement and actualizing it, turning it towards the future)
"Well, I don't think we need at this time to change the agreement. What we need at this time is to make the agreement work. And then when we get the institutions in place, obviously there would have to be a review, and you would have to listen to what other parties said, or indeed you might have ideas yourselves of how to improve it. But at the moment the main thing is to make it work. It's not working at the moment, not because of any lack of structure, but because of the absence of one of the main parties. And we need that main party, the DUP, back in government with the rest of us, and then we can look at what improvements might or might not be possible in the time ahead."
6. Various of Adams being interviewed
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Gerry Adams, former president of Sinn Fein:
(Asked about the Northern Assembly and the related inter-governmental North-South bodies that are not working at the moment)
"Well, I think it'll be resolved by Jeffrey Donaldson taking his place rightly, or his representatives taking their place rightly. As ministers they have a mandate to do that. We can disagree on all of these other matters, but we should do it on the basis of the political and institutional office that we are entitled to on behalf of the people who elected us."
8. Close of hands
9. Mid of Adams speaking
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Gerry Adams, former president of Sinn Fein:
"I think obviously there's always a capacity by one group or the other to commit some dastardly deed. But no, the war is over. The conflict's finished. The main protagonists from the British and the Irish side, the Irish Republican Army, they have left the field, so, no, it's not going back."
11. Adams during interview
12. Close of Adams
STORYLINE:
The former leader of Sinn Fein on Monday reiterated that there would be no chance of Northern Ireland returning to Troubles-era violence.
"The conflict's finished," Gerry Adams said, speaking to the Associated Press during an event in Belfast to mark 25 years since the Good Friday agreement was stuck, that largely ended three decades of sectarian bloodshed in Northern Ireland.
While peace has largely held, politics is deadlocked.
Northern Ireland’s 1.9 million people have been without a functioning government since the main unionist party walked out more than a year ago to protest post-Brexit trade rules that – like everything here – collided with notions of history and identity.
Participants gently for forcefully urged the Democratic Unionist Party to return to the power-sharing government.
Its leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, was one of the few senior Northern Ireland politicians not mingling on the university’s leafy, red-brick campus.
Adams predicted the political impasse “will be resolved” by the DUP returning to government.
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