72 Quotes by Peter Hain

What's crucial is that the IRA produce a credible statement that paramilitary and criminality activity is a thing of the past. That they are committed to a future which is exclusively peaceful and democratic.

Taxpayers will not stand for - nor should they - the funding of poster sites, leaflets or advertising. What people will support is funding for political education, for training, for party organization.

The big missing part of the jig-saw is to get the assembly back up and running here in Northern Ireland, to get shared government back in business, that is my objective, and we await the IRA statement to see if this will trigger a new dawn.

What my job is, is to get on with getting the process of democratic politics, back on the road, entrenching the peace settlement, and I ask you to judge me on my record.

There will be no support in the island of Ireland for building a nuclear power station.

We'll be launching the new public prosecution service in Northern Ireland tomorrow. I'll be doing it in Belfast tomorrow. This is an entirely new era, in which criminal justice now exercised on an equal basis, not the old basis in which community division was a feature.

I'm going to be looking forward, asked to be judged on my record, not taken back as has been the - in a sense, the tendency throughout politics in Northern Ireland, is to always look back, always look at what was said a long time ago, instead of looking forward.

I strongly support European sanctions against Mugabe and his ruling clique. We must do all in our power to help the people of Zimbabwe achieve their freedom and prosperity once again.

My job now, as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is to take this process forward, and that I'm determined to do, whatever old clippings you dig out and whatever old quotes you put before me.