Sinn Féin MLA Jemma Dolan travelled to the European Parliament in Brussels last week where she had been invited to attend a high-level conference to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

The Fermanagh South Tyrone MLA said: “I want to commend my party colleague, Chris McManus MEP, for organising this conference.”

Entitled ‘The Good Friday Agreement: 25 Years of Peace and Progress (a European Perspective)’, the conference convened two panels to explore the history and the legacy of the Agreement, the foundation document of the Peace Process, and highlight the contributions of the EU and the wider international community to developing, promoting, and protecting this achievement.

The first panel gathered the modern-day counterparts to the political leaders and stakeholders involved in bringing about the Agreement in 1998.

“I was just seven years old when the Agreement was signed, and so the second panel will be fitting as it aims to amplify the voices of the younger generations who have benefitted from its legacy, and will explore the progress that has been achieved since its signing,” Miss Dolan said.

“The eyes of the world are upon the North of Ireland as we mark 25 years of transformative peace on this island, and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in a matter of weeks.

“Now that agreement has been secured on the Brexit Protocol [via the ‘Windsor Framework’], we must now seize the huge opportunity of the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and look towards the future and the next 25 years.”