SDLP Annual Conference Dinner
A Chairde,
I am delighted to be able to join you here this evening and to see so many familiar and friendly faces.
I am particularly glad to be present as you celebrate the 40th anniversary of the SDLP’s establishment.
The historic achievements of the SDLP, not least the contribution of such towering figures as John Hume and Seamus Mallon, have been well chronicled over the years.
The SDLP is the party of the Agreement.
You are the architects and builders of the Agreement, an Agreement which required immense conviction and patience to put in place.
While the leaders of your party have been the subject of many tributes, credit for their achievements also rests with you - the ordinary men and women who have formed the backbone, the heart and the soul of this great party.
I thank you all for your steadfast commitment to our country.
Your collective contribution to peace and the betterment of life on this island has been immense.
I congratulate you all on the SDLP’s first 40 years.
As we all know, life only begins at 40 and I have no doubt that the party will continue to grow and develop even further in the years ahead.
This is a moment of great excitement and anticipation, with the election this weekend of your new party leader.
I wish both candidates well. Whatever the outcome, I assure you all that I will continue to work closely with the new leader and the wider party membership, as we each seek to make further progress towards lasting peace, prosperity and reconciliation in Ireland.
Of course, as well as being an occasion for celebration and looking forward to the future, this conference also has a bittersweet tinge.
As he completes his term as leader of your party, I want to pay special tribute tonight to my good friend Mark Durkan.
Mark’s life story and career path together embody all the very best qualities and the essential ethos of the Social Democratic and Labour Party.
Like the party which he has led with such distinction, Mark has displayed vision, integrity and leadership.
Along with so many other members of the party, he has also shown enormous physical and moral courage.
A product of that noted academy, St. Columb’s College, like many of his generation, Mark’s outlook on life and formative experiences derived from growing up in his beloved Derry in the 1960s and 1970s.
A witness to the birth of the civil rights movement, so closely associated with the formation of the SDLP, and to many other and at times tragic events in Northern Ireland over subsequent years, it was perhaps not surprising that Mark should have developed an interest in politics and that he was drawn to study the subject at Queen’s University.
From the very beginning, Mark saw the need to deal with the issues that were unfolding on the basis of ‘reason rather than rage’.
His destiny, and his devotion to his country, propelled him towards the SDLP.
His contribution as a party organiser, as party Chairperson, as a delegate to the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, and as a key member of the SDLP team during the negotiations which led to the Good Friday Agreement, all underline the fact that Mark is an SDLP person to his very fingertips.
Following his election to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998, he continued to make hugely important contributions as Minister for Finance and Personnel and as Deputy First Minister in succession to Seamus Mallon.
And, of course, he went on to fill the greatest shoes of all – as the successor to our Nobel Peace Prize winner, and our national hero, John Hume.
Mark’s contribution to the political progress that has meant so much to the people of Ireland has been matched by his contribution to economic and social progress for all of our people.
He played a key role in persuading the Irish Government to develop the most ambitious programme of North/South investment in history, in the National Development Plan.
The SDLP has been the intellectual engine of many of the most successful initiatives in North/South co-operation and of the creation of the North/South implementation bodies.
Our common commitment to that investment, to those bodies, and to the deepening of North/South co-operation, remains undiminished.
The fruits of that can be seen all around us.
As part of that programme, Mark’s home town of Derry can now look forward to the benefits of motorway-quality road links to Dublin, to world-class international broadband links to the US and Europe, to innovative cross-border approaches to higher education and to international air connectivity through the City of Derry Airport.
That is real, practical North/South co-operation in action.
To use the SDLP’s phrase, North/South really does make sense.
Right to the end of his leadership term, Mark has been engaged in his usual effective and constructive manner, on all of the issues that matter, with a view to finding common ground.
Mark’s great talent has been to make reality one of his favourite political dictums, Jim Larkin’s observation that:
‘You’ve got to keep narrowing the gap between what is, and what ought to be.’
It is fitting that his term of office as party leader ends on a further note of hope, with the agreement reached at Hillsborough yesterday.
It was an honour for me to join with the British Prime Minister in paying tribute to your party leader at our meeting in Hillsborough yesterday.
And let me assure you all that, though he accepted our tribute with his customary grace and good humour, Mark also made it clear that the SDLP has its own views on recent political developments, and on the future, and that it will continue to express them with force and vigour.
Mark’s good humour, not to mention his facility for pithy quotes, deserves special mention.
At times these were the key to lightening the atmosphere inside a negotiating room. They were also often the saviour of many a television or newspaper editor searching for a good line as they were facing an imminent deadline.
But it must also be said that Mark’s snappy soundbites, while crisply delivered, always made a serious point.
More often than not, they encapsulated exactly what needed to be said.
Mark Durkan, MP MLA, has contributed something truly special to all our lives.
When he eventually retires from politics, he will have left our country and the world a much better place than it was when he started out.
And just in case this all sounds too much like a farewell, let me stress that I have no doubt that he will continue to work for the people of Derry, and of Ireland, for many more years to come !
I wish Mark, his wife Jackie, and their family every happiness together as they embark on the next chapters of life dedicated to public service.
Let me conclude with some words from a great friend of Ireland, who we lost in recent months.
Senator Edward Kennedy was a great leader who strove for peace in Ireland, and a man who was proud to call Mark Durkan a friend.
His words from 1980, some 29 years before he completed his life’s work, seem very appropriate on this occasion:
“ For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.
For all those whose cares have been our concern,
The work goes on,
The cause endures,
The hope still lives,
And the dream shall never die. ”
Go raibh maith agaibh.