In his New Year message Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid said the North faced another year of challenges.
He said last year was one of enormous challenges and change during which it was shown the "seemingly impossible" - decommissioning, cross-community support for policing and new inclusive government - could be achieved.
The new year would present similar challenges he said where the North had to build on the foundations which have been laid.
This involved moving away from conflict towards resolving differences by democratic debate and discussion and building on the new police service by targeting the criminal elements, he said.
Most of all, Dr Reid said, it involved improving the quality of life for everyone in the North through the Assembly and Executive.
"Everyone in Northern Ireland will benefit from stable government and the devolved administration led by Mr David Trimble and Mr Mark Durkan represents by far the best opportunity for generations of achieving that.
"Devolution can work and the people of Northern Ireland want it to work. The local representatives who were elected to the Assembly and those who sit in the Executive must be given the chance to do the job that the people put them there to do," Dr Reid said.
Stability was essential if Northern Ireland was to emerge from division and conflict "into a new society in which the enmities of the past no longer poison the future and where difference and diversity is valued, not feared."
PA