May took her eye off the ball on North – and it’s come back to haunt her Dermot Ahern
LAST Monday morning, we awoke to the news that the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister were both travelling to Belfast that afternoon. All the headlines suggested that we were on the brink of a deal to restore the institutions in Northern Ireland.
Normally, the leaders would travel to the location of the talks, only if they were satisfied that their physical presence would get the deal over the line. However, there is nothing normal in Northern Irish political negotiations.
I’m bemused as to how the Government could have been taken ‘completely by surprise’. History would show that, when one side ‘spins’ about the possibility of agreement, there is a negative reaction from the other side. The DUP have ‘form’ in these type of situations.
It now appears that all the optimism of earlier in the week was misplaced. Those advising the two leaders may have ‘talked up’ the prospects of agreement. One way or the other, the two leaders were sent on a wild goose chase.
I had previously thought that the DUP were never going to sign on the dotted line as long as Gerry Adams was still around. I was convinced that a deal had to wait until the passing of the baton from Adams to Mary Lou McDonald which took place last Saturday.
I felt that the DUP wouldn’t want Gerry to be able to claim it as his swan-song achievement. So when I heard that the two leaders were on their way to Belfast, I assumed that my hunch was correct. Alas, the disagreement between SF and the DUP was more fundamental than mere optics.
THE events remind me of the ‘over-egging’ that occurred in Dublin last December, in the runup to the completion of phase one of the EU/UK Brexit negotiations. Readers will remember that Irish Government representatives, and particularly the Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, more or less claimed a done deal, only to be rebuffed by Prime Minister Theresa May, who had to take the famous phone call from the DUP leader, Arlene Foster.
Indeed, Government handlers had organised a press conference for the Taoiseach to herald the deal. Embarrassingly, this had to be postponed, because of the lastminute problems raised by the DUP.
Yet again, in regard to the Stormont negotiations, it would appear that the DUP are the bogeymen. From what we are told, Arlene Foster and some of her more senior members were spooked by the reaction in the wider unionist community to suggestions that there was going to be agreement on a stand-alone Irish Language Act, albeit wrapped up in a fudge, by having, additionally, an Act for Ulster Scots and another one on the issue of respecting language and diversity.
While Theresa May finds it necessary to cosy up to the DUP in order to keep her divided government in place, she must be rightly fed-up of the DUP pulling the plug on negotiations at the last minute.
The majority of the blame is being put on to Foster, and yet, suggestions have been made that Sinn Féin are ‘milking the situation’ by their insistence on an Irish Language Act. Over the next few days, there will be blame and counter-blame, but to see how we arrived at this situation, one must go back to the starting point of devolution, the 2006 St Andrews Agreement.
The intensive negotiations leading up to this agreement had one goal in mind: the restoration of the political institutions in Northern Ireland.
While much of the main focus was on the issue of policing and the rule of law, a number of other commitments and understandings were built in to the agreement.
These included a specific reference to an Irish Language Act. The Agreement states that ‘the [British] Government will introduce an Irish Language Act reflecting on the experience of Wales and [the Republic of] Ireland, and will work with the incoming executive to enhance and protect the development of the Irish language’.
Both main parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP, initially kicked for touch on their outright acceptance of the St Andrews Agreement.
However, in my view, by their subsequent actions of going into government with each other, and working the restored institutions, they are obliged to fulfil this commitment to the Irish language together with all the other matters which were agreed in this Agreement.
While, strictly speaking, the Agreement mandates the British government to introduce an Irish Language Act, they left it to the restored executive and assembly to deal with this.
Given that the two main parties are not able to agree on this, and if the Northern institutions continue to be mothballed, it is my view that there is an onus on the British Government to fulfil its previous commitment to introduce such an Act.
This could be done in such a way as to satisfy both sides of the argument, and might take this divisive issue off the table in any future attempt to negotiate restoration.
HAVING said all that, the issue of the Irish language is merely a symptom of the underlying mistrust between the two extremes in Northern Irish society. The lack of trust and absence of ‘parity of esteem’ on both sides continues to eat away at any prospect of resolution.
Mary Lou McDonald also stated that there had been agreement reached between Sinn Féin and the DUP that the British government would legislate so that the Executive Justice Minister would be elected in the same manner as other ministers for the Assembly elections in 2022.
Up to now, the rules have been designed to ensure that anyone other than the DUP and Sinn Féin could hold the justice ministry. This apparent agreement to change would potentially mean that SF or the DUP could hold that ministry in four years time.
Having dealt with the DUP on the issue of devolution of policing and justice, I’m more than surprised that, according to McDonald, the DUP have agreed to the possibility of a member of Sinn Féin becoming justice minister. I would have thought that, even to this day, this would be a complete anathema to most unionists.
So, I’m wondering that maybe the Irish language wasn’t the only stumbling block for the DUP.
This year represents the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. For quite a lot of the years just after that agreement in 1998, it was clear that the agreement was, as I have often said, only as good as the paper it was written on, unless the principles and sentiments expressed in the agreement were followed through and implemented on the ground.
The fragile conditions flowing from the agreement had to be nurtured by the main players, including the two governments.
Unfortunately, the British government, especially, have taken their eye off the ball in recent years, and have left the political parties in the North to their own devices.
They must, now, be beginning to realise that their lack of attention is coming back to haunt them.