The man who announced the result of the Good Friday Agreement referendum has called on Stormont parties to "stop digging trenches".
Pat Bradley, former chief electoral officer for Northern Ireland, urged politicians to "get together and sort things out".
The 87-year-old from Derry was speaking as he reflected on the 25th anniversary of the 1998 peace deal.
Mr Bradley described his involvement in overseeing the referendum, in which 71% of voters in Northern Ireland backed the agreement, as the "highest point of my life".
He recalled how there was "a lot of tension" in the King's Hall in Belfast ahead of the result being announced.
There were tensions among the political parties wondering how the vote would go and from the media "trying to battle their way around parts of the hall to get a better angle".
He said: "My concern was that when I was going to announce the result there might be some sort of agitation within the hall and that would be bad not only for myself and for others, but also for the international media.
"So I decided not to follow the normal method of announcing the result with the number of ballots counted and the number of invalid ballot papers - I went straight to the punchline."
He said that when he saw the majority in favour of the agreement, "I realised then that the hall was not going to have any problems as such and the result would be accepted".
Mr Bradley, who was chief electoral officer from 1980 until 2001 and also worked in different countries overseeing elections, said the Good Friday Agreement poll was a career high point.
He said: "I have worked in some 40 countries around the world in difficult and terrible situations at times.
"But having said that I regard the result of the referendum that had been done successfully as my bonus, my highest point of my life.
"It was something I was proud of, satisfied with and that it had been done successfully."
Mr Bradley said the fatal shooting of Lyra McKee in Derry in 2019 prompted him to recently write a book about his experiences.
He said he hoped it would act as a "catalyst to try and get people to come ahead and do things" and "get Northern Ireland moving forward".
He added: "I decided to write a book on all of my work abroad in difficult areas where people were fighting and there were problems because I thought Northern Ireland should recognise that at long last there was time to try and get together."
Mr Bradley said it was time to "stop digging trenches in politics, get together and sort things out".
He added: "Let's get together, let's sort things out, and let's get the country going. And remember, we only live here for one time."
Stormont power-sharing has not been functioning for the past year due to the DUP blocking its restoration in protest against Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Windsor Framework deal aimed at addressing Irish Sea trading issues resulting from the Protocol has since been agreed by the UK and European, but the DUP has continued to express concerns.
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