DUP East Belfast MLA Robin Newton has said that the latest political survey carried out by Queen's University vindicated his party's belief that the vast majority of unionists do not support the Good Friday Agreement.

Mr Newton said that, having been suspended on four occasions within the past three years, the Agreement had proven to be incapable of delivering stable government in Northern Ireland.

He added: "Surely the Secretary of State must realise that instead of solving problems, the full implementation of this nefarious Agreement will lead to greater instability and any review of the Agreement that will take place in the next weeks will ultimately fail: this Belfast Agreement is fatally flawed.

"It is not for the government to decide who will negotiate on behalf of unionism or nationalism, but it is the government's responsibility to permit the people of Northern Ireland to make this determination for themselves."

Mr Newton said that the history of Northern Ireland had taught its citizens that for any agreement to survive it required the support of both unionists and nationalists.

"In order to create long-term stability and a mechanism to move away from crisis management it is necessary to have institutions that can withstand the attacks of terrorism from any quarter or any election result," he said.

"Only an election result can give the authority for negotiations and only realism can then provide the basis for an alternative agreement that will have the support of all reasonable people."

The results of the poll, released on Wednesday, revealed that support for the Belfast Agreement among the people of Northern Ireland is at an all-time low.

The research showed that support for the agreement was at 62%, with only 36% of Protestants saying they would still vote for it, compared with the 53% who supported it in the 1998 referendum. Catholic support remained steady at 90%.

(MB)