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Devolution (Northern Ireland)

The interest in Northern Ireland will cease to be based on long-standing conflicts and on the issues that are not yet resolved after the agreements that we have seen reached there. It will be based on how Northern Ireland is moving forward and on the talent, genius and potential of the Northern Ireland people, their ability to innovate, their strong universities, the education system, which is improving, and the innovative work of many businesses, some of which receive inward investment but some of which are generated by Northern Ireland talent on its own. The focus in Northern Ireland in future will be on the economic choices and social improvements that are made in that country. When people look at Northern Ireland today, they see a Northern Ireland that is different from a few years ago. In a few years' time, if the whole focus of the Assembly is on jobs, health, welfare, the environment, tourism and all those issues, that will be how people will wish to look at Northern Ireland—it is a beautiful country with great people, who have come together and confronted and surmounted difficult times.