Video: Arlene Foster says Lyra McKee killers will not be allowed to drag us back

Mrs. Foster visited the Guildhall to sign a Book of Condolence for the young Belfast woman before attending a peace rally in her memory in Fanad Drive where she was shot by a republican gunman.

She said: "Personally it's very sad to come to the city in such circumstances.

"As you know I come to the city often to celebrate the diversity and the growth of the economy here and indeed the tourism product and I know how proud the people of Londonderry are of their city so it's very sad to come here on a day when there's been a murder committed in this city.

"My thoughts and prayers go to the family of Lyra and her partner of course at this time."

She said the violent republican organisation suspected of carrying out the murder would never be allowed to succeed.

"We must not allow it to drag us back. I think the importance of all of this is to see everybody standing together as we saw out in Guildhall Square. We all stand together to say no we are not going back here and that this is an aberration," she insisted.

The DUP leader said that while today was not a day for politics it was important to try to get the power-sharing institutions back up and running in order till the political vacuum that exists at the moment.

"What we must do now is make democracy work and to make politics work," she said.

"It is vitally important to get Stormont back up and running. There is no justification for what has happened last night, whether there was Stormont or no Stormont, there is no justification for that.

"What I think is important is that we have democracy up and running at the Assembly. We are ready to do that. We are ready to do that today."