(Delivered in the Park Avenue Hotel - 10/04/2013)
I offer a particular welcome to our students, who were born in and around the time of the Belfast Agreement in 1998.
As was my second son. In fact, I remember at around 4 o'clock on the Good Friday morning being sent home for some sleep, and my wife had Chris in bed with her so I lay down in the spare bed, but I couldn't sleep, I was caught up in the mood of the moment – a moment of history, which promised so much for Chris and people like you.
I imagined a Northern Ireland that was at peace with itself. Not fighting. Because when I was your age, people were getting killed on a daily basis, including this day, the 10th of April.
On 10th April 1972, Eric Blackburn and Brian Thomasson, two soldiers in the Royal Artillery were blown up in Londonderry.
On 10th April 1974, a man called George Saunderson was shot dead in the kitchen of the primary school in Fermanagh where he was Headmaster.
On 10th April 1977, a ten year old schoolboy called Kevin McMenamin was blown up by the UVF in west Belfast; and a man named John Short was shot dead by the IRA in the same area.
On April 10th 1991, Colum Marks was shot dead during an attempted bomb attack on Newry police station.
The next year, 1992, on April the 10th, an IRA bomb in London killed a 15 year old schoolgirl called Danielle Carter, Paul Butt who was 29 and Thomas Casey, a 49 year old.
There isn’t a single day of the year – not one date in the calendar – which is not the anniversary of someone’s death between 1969 and 1998.
When I was your age, I had a part time job as a waiter in the bar in this very hotel. And if my friends and I wanted a night out, we stayed here in the east, or we'd go to Ards, or Bangor, or maybe Balloo. Even though it would have much handier to go into town. But Belfast City Centre was a dangerous place. And north and west Belfast were just out of the question.
So in the early hours of this morning 15 years ago, I was imagining something different for Chris and for people like you.
A country at peace.
A people comfortable in their own skins.
Of Northern Ireland being the best region in the whole of the UK.
With people queuing up to move here, or take their holidays here, or just ask how we did it, because everyone ..... envied us.
I thought about all the new schools we could build, and the hospitals and roads, with the millions and millions of pounds we would save from not having to spend it on security, policing the violence.
I thought about you and how many of you would be world class achievers, because I know inside every one of you there is a spark of ability - of creativity and skill, and I imagined our bright new Northern Ireland would bend over backwards to help you develop your personal, individual talents.
I did NOT dream that the Audit Office would report 15 years later that 40% of young people were leaving school without decent skills in reading and writing. It's wrong, it shouldn't be happening, and there's no reason why we can't make it stop and do better.
I did not imagine so many young people would end up without a job.
Or that schools like Dundonald High would be facing the threat of closure, or that hospital Emergency Units were over-flowing and waiting lists getting longer.
I did not imagine that there would still be terrorists committing murder on our streets, or that people would feel so frustrated and let down and disappointed by how it has turned out.
Fifteen years on , Ladies and Gentlemen, maybe people who do the job I do need to offer people like you an acknowledgement that this is not where Northern Ireland was supposed to be in 2013, and a promise that we will re-commit to doing better.
Yes, we have come a long way from where we were 15 and 20 and 25 years ago. But maybe it's time to stop talking about what we have achieved and focus instead on what we have failed to achieve.
We do tend to dwell on our achievements. And the Belfast Agreement did achieve much.
The biggest achievement, of course, was making safe Northern Ireland's future in the Union, by placing its future in the hands of the voters. Before the Belfast Agreement, the government in London decided what would happen to Northern Ireland. They could have decided a United Ireland was the best way forward - some say they nearly did with the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985.
What the Ulster Unionist Party did in 1998 was to get everyone to agree the principle of consent. In other words, Northern Ireland stays part of the United Kingdom unless and until a majority of people vote for a change.
That was a fantastic achievement, and even the unionists who didn't support the Belfast Agreement at the time are coming around to applaud that. Ian Paisley was the DUP Leader in those days, and a few weeks ago, he wrote an article in the Belfast Newsletter in praise of how the Irish Government dropped its Constitutional Claim to govern Northern Ireland. That was part of the process that became the Belfast Agreement.
But where we haven't succeeded is in agreeing what being part of the Union means in terms of expressing culture and identity. We all know what happened when the Union Flag came down from Belfast City Hall last December.
Unionists are asking - what's the point of the Union being safe if we cannot express our Britishness.
And people aren't sure what Republicans want. It might be that they simply want equality and mutual respect - and they already have that. That was part of the spirit of the Belfast Agreement. It was one of the underlying values.
But there is also a suspicion that what Republicans really want is to remove every single sign that Northern Ireland is part of the Union. Because if there are no flags, or symbols or emblems that say this is part of the UK, then Republicans don't feel so bad about the fact that they failed to achieve the United Ireland they said they would deliver for their people.
I can only conclude that, SO FAR, we have yet to deliver a country properly at peace with itself. And that's a challenge you are going to have to pick up. Because these big issues that my generation hasn't fixed - these issues are going to take a long time to put right, and it will need commitment from people like you to get us there.
So, I hope today is the start of a new chapter, a better chapter, better focused on you and your needs.
I didn't get involved in politics just to do things the way they are being done at the moment. I want to change things. I want to help people. I want to be a public servant.
And what I mean by that - being a public servant - isn't just about making laws at Stormont.
A wee while ago, I was at a meeting in a community hall down the Ards Peninsula and I was asked to step out into another room, and in that room was a woman who was very upset. She was in despair. Her husband had left her, she had a young child, no money, no home, no Hope.
And I was able to help her, and a few weeks later, she walked into my office in Ards with this big, broad, beaming smile on her face - and that's what I loved about politics. Being able to help people, by asking the Housing Executive, or the local health trust, or the education and library board, or whoever, to do something that makes someone's life better.
And the reason I'm in politics with the Ulster Unionist Party is because the Ulster Unionists have a saying - a motto, if you like. It is:
Country First, Party Second, Individual Third.
My son Chris - the fifteen year old - asked me a while ago what that meant - that Country First, Party Second, Individual Third motto.
I put it to him like this:
Last time my Party was in charge, the Country was in a very challenging place. As we have said, people being murdered, businesses being blown up. No one wanting to come and visit us - and to make matters worse, the Republic across the border was making millions and millions from tourism, their economy was taking off - they were the ones buildings schools and hospitals and roads.
And the Ulster Unionist Party knew that the only way to make things different was to reach an Agreement, but the Ulster Unionist Party also knew that negotiating a settlement wouldn't be 100% popular with our voters.
So, the choice was Put the Country First and reach Agreement
Or
Put the Party first and sit on our hands
We put the country first.
And the country profited, and the Party took a big hit. We're not the biggest Party in the country anymore. Because some people didn't like the Agreement. Now over 70% voted for it in a Referendum, but a lot of our people didn't like parts of what was agreed, and they took their anger out on us.
But still, was that not the right thing to do - Country first, Party second?
And is that what every political party does?
Today, you have the DUP and Sinn Fein running the country. Yes, there are five parties in the Executive, but it's Sinn Fein / DUP at the heart of government, in the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister.
Do they put Country First and Party Second?
Fifteen years ago, the people of Northern Ireland were made a promise - the promise of better days ahead, politically, economically, culturally.
And there has been a massive failure to deliver.
Of course, a while ago, the people decided they wanted the DUP instead of us at the heart of government.
People said we're putting our trust in the DUP.
The DUP get our votes, they said, because they’re promising a better deal.
Does anyone really feel better off for making that switch.
Have you seen the promised Battle a Day?
Or does it feel more like a concession a day?
The Ulster Unionist Party think it's time for another change.
It's time to fix the big problems that remain – Dealing with the Past, Reconciliation, and building a Shared not a Shared Out future.
It's time to deliver for you, because I don't want your children sitting here in 20 or 25 years time, wondering why we still haven't sorted things out.
So today, we are looking forward, not backwards.
And we are making some commitments, and we expect you to hold us to them.
First of all, in keeping with our motto of Country First, Party second, we commit that every action, every decision, and every policy we undertake will be tested against whether we are Doing What’s Right for Northern Ireland.
And that involves long term vision.
We've said the Union is safe, as long as you vote Ulster Unionist. But we also need to have a long term plan to convince young people like you, from whatever background, that your interests are best served in the Union. It's right politically, economically, culturally, socially.
We want to fix the education system. Some of you go to Ashfield up the road. There are two good schools up there, well resourced with energetic leaders.
Some of you go to Dundonald, another school with a dynamic leader, but it's not getting the resources and the support of government. We want to fix that. We believe in every child and young person, and we want all to have an equal chance at school, whether they are academic, vocational, technical, artistic or sporting.
And the way to make a big difference is to let teachers teach - and stop tying them up in paperwork.
We believe in people like you making our economy stronger. We want to put local entrepreneurs and business people first. We want you to be world class achievers, whether you are working in traditional sectors, like agriculture, or in the new, creative industries.
We want school and hospitals and houses that give you what you deserve - to live in a healthy, educated, peaceful and prosperous society, proud of its origins and achievements
We want to offer mutual respect to people from other traditions - whether they feel Irish, or have come here from abroad - our so-called ethnic minorities.
Actually, I want us to show a true generosity of spirit in dealing with them.
But what we will NOT do is allow anyone to re-write history. The violence that we fought to end with the Belfast Agreement was terrorism and many, many brave men and women put themselves in harm's way to protect their families, their communities and this country, and we will not allow others to portray them as part of the problem. The problem was that some people thought terrorism was a legitimate way to air their grievance. And if we allow history to be re-written, we risk it being repeated.
I say again what I always say - no one needed to die to get where we are today.
And where we are today is not where we are supposed to be.
It's not what anyone intended fifteen years ago.
It's time to those responsible for that lack of delivery to front up, and acknowledge the shortfalls, and commit to putting things right.
Today, we publish our Commitment Card.
It tells you want we believe as Ulster Unionists, and what we want to do for you, putting Country First, re-committing ourselves to Public Service, and making clear we are ready to do some more hard work, to get Northern Ireland where it deserves to be.
In short, we re-commit to Doing What’s Right For Northern Ireland