While Biden glories in Good Friday Agreement I shall remember the victims - ARLENE FOSTER

There will be many celebrating the anniversary who were there at the time such as Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, the Irish premier at the time. They have every right to mark the achievement of the Agreement which came after many years of violence and terrorism for the people of Northern Ireland and indeed the wider United Kingdom.

The first IRA ceasefire had come in 2004 only to be broken in 2006 by bombs in Manchester and London. Two people were murdered, over 100 were injured and over £85m of damage was caused. It was quite the way to break a ceasefire and remind the political classes just what republican terrorists could do if they chose to.

Tony Blair then became Prime Minister after the general election of 2007 and shortly after that Bertie Ahern became Irish Prime Minister. Both men were determined to build on the work of John Major and Albert Reynolds but firstly they needed the IRA to again declare a ceasefire, and they did just that in July 2007.

Political talks then happened in earnest and culminated with the Belfast Agreement in April 2008. It was, for those of us who were there in the run up to the agreement, touch and go as to whether it would happen but on the early hours of April 10 David Trimble - later Lord Trimble - decided to go with what was on the table.

To his credit he had achieved recognition that Northern Ireland was and would remain part of the United Kingdom until the people of Northern Ireland decided otherwise and the Republic of Ireland amended their constitution to deal with articles 2 and 3 which lay claim to Northern Ireland as part of their geographical territory.

This was something which the EU never challenged even though it was contrary to International law. You could be forgiven for thinking that the EU is only interested in some breaches of International law…..

David Trimble was a constitutional lawyer and that showed throughout the negotiations.

He did not however appreciate the impact of allowing terrorists out of prison whilst not dealing with the legacy of the past.

Those who had already paid the ultimate sacrifice by losing their husband, parent, son or daughter to violence were just expected to move on and accept the new dispensation where those responsible were not just permitted to escape due justice but were allowed to become public representatives in the new devolved administration.

As readers will know the legacy of the past is still being debated and when I asked Bertie Ahern recently about any issue which should have been dealt with in the Agreement but wasn’t, legacy was one of the issues he mentioned.

Alongside dealing with the decommissioning of terrorist weapons in an effective way of course.

The morally objectionable way in which terrorists from all sides were released and victims were left to fend for themselves was amongst the reasons why I as a young woman decided to vote against the Agreement.

I was not anti-agreement as some labelled me, but anti ‘this’ agreement which sought to elevate those who had caused so much pain to so many.

There were other reasons why I voted No including the way in which the RUC were to be treated – a police service which had held the line between violent paramilitaries and normal society - but the main reason was the prisoner releases and the lack of support for victims.

So, whilst others this weekend will bask in their achievements, and some will seek to be associated with the success of the Belfast Agreement, (Von der Leyen, Biden etc) I will be thinking of the many victims of terrorism who have suffered since their loved ones were taken away by a heinous premeditated act of a terrorist long since rehabilitated into normal society.

Those victims and survivors are the people that should not be forgotten in the middle of all the celebrations.

They are the ones who paid the biggest price.