The Northern Ireland Secretary has said he does not believe the Good Friday Agreement will collapse because of the current political crisis.

Speaking at the Institute of Irish Studies in Liverpool on Friday, Peter Mandelson said nobody wanted to be reminded of Deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon's comparison of the new political arrangement with the failed Sunningdale agreement on powersharing in 1974.

Mr Mandelson was speaking the day after addressing the Commons on the future of the eight-week-old Northern Ireland power-sharing executive.

He said there were similarities between the 1974 agreement and the current Good Friday Agreement, but that the new agreement was "broader, deeper and fairer".

And that it would succeed because it was "more robust than Sunningdale".

He said: "Its institutions are more inclusive, more democratic. Its roots in the community go deeper."

Mr Mandelson said if the Good Friday Agreement did fall what would emerge from a new "lost generation" 30 years later would be "give or take the odd dot and commas, exactly the same as the one we have today".

He said after "another 30 years of direct rule, 30 years of unemployment, low investment and sympathy, but not respect, in the eyes of the world" only one thing would change.

"Only the wounds will be deeper, the trust will be harder to build and the people more cynical than ever about the capacity of their politicians to represent them."

Mr Mandelson added that no-one would be in a stronger position than they were now, "just more anguished, more exhausted and more defeated".

But the Northern Ireland Secretary said he had faith that the people of Northern Ireland would not let the Agreement fall.

He said: "Northern Ireland's proud traditions grew up in adversity, as they saw it, to protect their way of life, to express their traditions without fear of attack.

"They did not live in fear and isolation, did not suffer dreadful losses of friends and family only to flinch now that we are in sight of peace.

"I have more faith in the people of Northern Ireland than that. They will their spirit, their history demands that we make this agreement work."

Emergency legislation

On Friday, emergency legislation to suspend the Northern Ireland Assembly went before Westminster, a move which has led to an angry reaction from Sinn Fein.

The party's president, Gerry Adams, has accused Secretary of State Peter Mandelson of "disgraceful" behaviour.

Earlier, Sinn Fein's chairman Mitchell McLaughlin said that he "doubted very much" that the IRA would begin decommissioning its arsenal within seven days - the time it will take to suspend the assembly - or even by the 22 May deadline set out in the agreement.

David Trimble, the assembly's First Minister and leader of the Ulster Unionists, is meeting his party to discuss his threat to withdraw from the eight-week old body, arguing that he cannot sit in government with Sinn Fein because the IRA has failed to begin decommissioning.

Mr Mandelson's proposed suspension of the assembly is designed to prevent Mr Trimble from stepping down which, it is feared, would precipitate the collapse of the Good Friday Agreement.

While talks continued in Belfast, the Prime Minister Tony Blair made it clear that movement had to come from the IRA.