McLaughlin says the North’s reputation in America was damaged by Stormont hiatus - video Dailymotion

McLaughlin says the North’s reputation in America was damaged by Stormont hiatus

Transcript

00:00 The First Minister and Deputy First Minister will be in Washington DC next week for St.

00:06 Patrick's. What benefits will they aim to deliver for Northern Ireland and bring forward

00:11 during that trip?

00:12 Our annual visit to DC around St. Patrick's Day offers unprecedented access to key decision

00:20 makers at a very senior level. When you look across the globe, the opportunities that

00:28 equivalent regions or countries the size of Northern Ireland get, we do have this incredible

00:33 access and we want to maximise the opportunity with that. We will be going to DC with a very

00:38 positive message. It's the positive message that we have sought out to really establish

00:43 over the course of the first four weeks of our joint leadership of the Executive. That is that

00:48 Northern Ireland is up for investment. We are up for that growth. We want Northern Ireland to thrive

00:54 for all our young people and all our places throughout. We will be going to DC. Yes, you are

00:59 absolutely right. There is a huge amount of goodwill out there. It is our responsibility

01:04 to make sure that we maximise that opportunity of goodwill to bring the maximum benefit to

01:09 everyone here in Northern Ireland.

01:10 Deputy First Minister, do you agree that stop-start government damages our international

01:17 reputation and negates our ability to positively sell Northern Ireland? Remember that it is only

01:23 12 months since we did not go to Washington last year because we had no government.

01:27 Thank you. As I have set out very clearly, the key thing in terms of moving forward is to try

01:34 to build those robust, confident, strong and constructive working relationships. I look

01:40 forward to working with the Member and her party as official opposition, but indeed with parties

01:45 right throughout this Assembly in order to sell a very positive vision. The key thing here is to

01:52 ensure that we avoid instability by working well together. I am confident at this stage that we

01:59 have the ambition to do that right across the Executive and all the parties at the Executive.

02:03 I look forward to working constructively with the official opposition.