In full: US President Joe Biden's speech at Ulster University as he says Northern Ireland's future is America's future

“Your history is our history, but even more important your future is America’s future,” the US president said.

“Today’s Belfast is the beating heart of Northern Ireland and is poised to drive unprecedented economic opportunity and investment, from communities across the UK, across Ireland, across the United States. The simple truth is that peace and economic opportunity go together.

“The 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland’s gross domestic product has literally doubled.”

The president said that figure would only improve if “things continue to move in the right direction”.

“There are scores of major American corporations wanting to come here, wanting to invest. Many have already made homes in Northern Ireland.”

The US president said the “dividends of peace are all around us”.

“This very campus is situated at an intersection where conflict and bloodshed once held a terrible sway,” he said.

“The idea to have a glass building here when I was here in ’91 was highly unlikely.

“Where barbed wire once sliced up the city, today we find a cathedral of learning built of glass and let the light shine in and out.

“This has a profound impact for someone who has come back to see it.

“It’s an incredible testament to the power and the possibilities of peace.”

President Biden called for the restoration of powersharing at Stormont.

He said: “I believe the democratic institution established in the Good Friday Agreement remain critical to the future of Northern Ireland.

“It’s a decision for you to make, not for me to make.”

But he said “an effective, devolved government that reflects the people of Northern Ireland and is accountable to them, a government that works to find ways through hard problems together” would help draw “even greater opportunity” to the region.

“I hope the assembly and the executive will soon be restored,” he said.

“That’s a judgment for you to make, not me.

“I hope it happens, along with the institutions that help facilitate north-south and east-west relations, all of which are vital pieces of the Good Friday Agreement.”

He said his special envoy to Northern Ireland, Joe Kennedy III, would “supercharge” work to encourage more investment in the region and help it realise its “enormous economic potential”.

The US president said Mr Kennedy would lead a trade delegation of US companies to the region later in the year.

Mr Biden said Brexit created “complex challenges” for Northern Ireland.

“I encouraged the leaders of the UK and the EU to address the issues in a way that served Northern Ireland’s best interest,” he said.

“I deeply appreciate the personal leadership of Prime Minister Sunak and European Commissioner Von der Leyen to reach an agreement.

“The Windsor Framework addresses the practical realities of Brexit and it is an essential step to ensuring the hard-earned peace and progress of the Good Friday agreement that they are preserved and strengthened.

“Negotiators listened to business leaders across the UK and Ireland who shared what they needed to succeed, and I believe the stability and predictability offered by this framework will encourage greater investment in Northern Ireland, significant investment in Northern Ireland.”

Mr Biden said the response of Northern Ireland’s political leaders to the shooting of Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell in Omagh showed “the enemies of peace will not prevail”.

“Northern Ireland will not go back, pray God.

“The attack was a hard reminder there will always be those who seek to destroy, rather than rebuild.

“But the lesson of the Good Friday Agreement is this: at times when things seem fragile or easily broken, that is when hope and hard work are needed the most.”

He paid tribute to peace makers from “pioneering women who said ‘enough’ and demanded change”, political leaders and the “determined efforts” of his “good friend” Senator George Mitchell to bring about the Good Friday Agreement.

“His time serving as special envoy for Northern Ireland is one of the great examples in history of the right person for the right job at the right time in my view,” Mr Biden said of Mr Mitchell.

“I think sometimes, especially with the distance of history, we forget how hard-earned, how astounding that peace was. It shifted the political gravity in our world.

“In 1998 it was the longest-running conflict in Europe since the end of World War Two – thousands of families had been affected by the Troubles, losses are real, the pain was personal.

“Every person killed in the Troubles left an empty chair at the dining room table, a hole in the heart that was never filled for the ones they lost.

“Peace was not inevitable, we can’t ever forget that. As George Mitchell often said, the negotiations had 700 days of failure, and one day of success, but they kept going because George and all the many others never stopped believing that success was possible.

“I want all of you, especially the young people, to know the American people are with you, every step of the way.”

Mr Biden spoke of how compassion “had changed how this entire region sees itself”, as he called for a recommittal to peace in Northern Ireland.

He told an audience at Ulster University: “This place is transformed by peace, made technicolour by peace, made whole by peace.

“So today, I come to Belfast to pledge for all the people of Northern Ireland, the United States of America will continue to be your partner in building the future the young people of our world deserve.

“It matters to us, to Americans, and to me personally. It genuinely matters.

“So let’s celebrate 25 extraordinary years by recommitting to renewal, repair, by making this exceptional peace a birth right of every child in Northern Ireland for all the days to come.

“That is what we should be doing, God willing you’ll be able to do it. Thank you all for listening and may God bring you the peace we need.”