February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Following a meeting in Dublin on Wednesday with Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Miche_l Martin, she traveled to Belfast to meet community leaders and victims of state violence in West Belfast. Today, she will be holding discussions with community activitsts, including paramilitaries turned peacemakers in loyalist East Belfast.
Addressing a business breakfast in Belfast city centre this morning, she said: “Ireland is of enormous importance to New Yorkers,” she said. “The impact of Ireland in New York is huge. New York feels an enormous connection to Ireland. The future of Belfast, the future of the peace process, is of enormous importance to us and we understand that the next leg of the peace process is economic development. And we want to feel that we played a part not only in stabilising the peace but building it further.”