SDLP's Rodgers makes final speech as deputy

The outgoing deputy leader of the SDLP, Brid Rodgers, says the Good Friday Agreement hasn't failed, but rather those who were meant to implement it in full have failed.

In her final speech as deputy leader of the party, Mrs Rodgers said the SDLP had not changed its ultimate aspiration towards a united Ireland.

Mrs Rodgers said the Good Friday Agreement was and is acceptable to both traditions.

What was not acceptable was the failure to implement it all of it.

The SDLP, she said, would engage with all parties in the review of the workings of the Agreement while making it clear that its protections are not negotiable.

The issues to be resolved continued, she said, to be those which had bedeviled and obstructed the process from the beginning and the will of unionists to fully work all of the institutions coupled with the ending of all paramilitary activity.

The SDLP alone remained the party of peaceful persuasion and the only one able to win the consent of a simple majority in a referendum on Irish unity, she said.

"We are the only party that can deliver a United Ireland," said Mrs Rodgers.