00:00Let's stop making nurses and healthcare workers feel that the only ones right across the United Kingdom
00:06have to threaten strike action to get what's there.
00:09Frankly, it would be bad faith for the executive who approved pay parity not to maintain that position.
00:17I've done my bit as Minister Conference. Let's send a message to the executive.
00:23This message. Pay the nurses. Pay the doctors. Pay the workforce.
00:30So when I think about the state of politics, I think this, we need to be more sensitive about our words and our actions.
00:48We need to put the human cost of what we do and say front and centre of what we do.
00:54We need to be honest because we always have choices, whether it's quite today or whether it's quite yesterday.
01:02Justifying anything with a claim that we had no choice just doesn't cut it.
01:09If you pick up a gun, you choose to pick up a gun.
01:12If you detonate a bomb, you choose to set the timer or press the detonator.
01:17And, you know, I used to have that debate with the late Martin McGuinness.
01:21His response was, ah, but you didn't go up in Derry the way I did.
01:27And I said, yeah, that's true.
01:29But John Hume did.
01:31And he chose a different path.
01:33John Hume chose a different path, and I would argue he achieved much more with his peaceful strategy.
01:50In 1998, that peaceful strategy met David Trimble's outstanding courage.
01:54And as Seamus Heamey famously put it, hope and history ran.
02:01Hope.
02:02Hope peaked in 1998, and we need to restore some more hope in 2025.
02:09Success is within reach politically.
02:13We're on our way economically.
02:16We're developing culturally.
02:17There's a growing sense that Northern Irishness is a thing, distinct from, but at the same time, embracing Britishness, Irishness, whatever you need.
02:29It's more than a brand.
02:30It's a feeling.
02:31It's a sense of belonging.
02:32A sense of unique identity in which we can all take pride.
02:39And also, by the way, thanks for those who steadfastly refer to this place only as the North appear very old-fashioned.
02:45And out of touch because they're denying people their sense of Northern Irishness.
02:51By the way, we'll refer to the government of Dublin as the government of Ireland, even though it's a bit of a stretch.
02:56Is it too much for nationalists to embrace the term Northern Ireland, or do they still just want to cherry-pick the bits of the 1998 agreement that they like?
03:05Well, thank you very much.
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