15.6.2006
Reports obtained from:
(1) Sunday Business Post, (2) Daily Ireland, (3) Irish Republican News, (4) Irish News
Sunday, 11 June, 2006
Thursday, 8 June, 2006
Thursday-Monday, 1-5 June, 2006
Tuesday-Friday, 23-26 May, 2006
Wednesday, 24 May, 2006
It’s make or break time for parties in the North
By Sunday Business Post
‘Bye bye, Assembly’’ will be the blunt message delivered at the end of June by British prime minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to the North’s political parties if they don’t get their house in order, according to a Downing Street source.
This warning shot comes at the end of three days of bitter wrangling at parliament buildings over the appointment of a chairman or chairpeople of the so-called Preparation for Government Committee. That committee was set up by Northern secretary Peter Hain with the aim of ‘‘scoping and identifying’’ issues arising in the lead-up to the restoration of the institutions of the Assembly.
The battle is being fought on two fronts: one dealing with the past, the other with the future. The DUP seems to want to play the long game. No one seems capable of gauging whether party leader Ian Paisley genuinely wants to turn history on its head and enter a power-sharing executive with Sinn Féin in.
Such a development always has so many preconditions and caveats that the DUP’s intentions are forever cloaked.
DUP spokespersons still demand photographic evidence daily to show that the IRA has destroyed its arsenal, that the IRA has disbanded and that all criminality has ended. Republicans have said a number of times that the war is over. The British and Irish governments believe this to be true. The Garda Síochana and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) accept that this is the reality.
And clearly the leadership of the Presbyterian Church was of like mind when it called on politicians last week to accept their responsibilities. In the long game being played by Paisley and his acolytes, there can be no accommodation if we take seriously what they say about Sinn Féin in in any positions of authority.
Should the DUP concede that the IRA has fully decommissioned, has ceased its military campaign and has ended all criminality, that would be tantamount to admitting real change had taken place in the North.
Observers and other political watchers in the North - as well as elements within the DUP - are concluding that the DUP is not working towards power-sharing with Sinn Féin in in the short term, because of the representatives chosen by Ian Paisley to put the party’s case at the Preparation for Government Committee.
These include Ian Paisley Jr, the Reverend William McCrea and Maurice Morrow. Sinn Féin in is determined to drive its ‘project’ forward. It sees itself as the bigger nationalist party in the Assembly and therefore is resolute that it is entitled to a share of any chairs of Assembly committees in accordance with its numerical strength.
This tug-of-war between the DUP and Sinn Féin in over the chairing of the Preparation for Government Committee is the rock upon which progress is perishing.
Hain is visibly frustrated with the absence of progress. The UUP, the SDLP and Sinn Féin in have been ganging up over the past week on the DUP, but to no avail.
Hain said it was ‘‘impossible to see the Assembly moving on substantive business’’ if there could not be agreement on such a basic procedural issue as chairman.
The DUP has been pushing for Eileen Bell, the speaker of the Assembly, to take the chair of the devolution committee. She has, however, ruled herself out, claiming her integrity would be undermined as the Assembly’s presiding officer.
Sinn Féin in would be happy with Bell and her two deputies, Jim Wells of the DUP and Francie Molloy, the party’s own Assembly member, to rotate the chair.
This would force the DUP into acknowledging Sinn Féin’s presence as a potential partner in government, something which is at the heart of the party’s game plan.
Hain will intervene tomorrow when his deadlines for the parties to sort out the issue of the chair expire. He could parachute an independent chairman into the equation, but that would leave him open to the charge from Sinn Féin in that he had caved in to the DUP.
Alternatively, he can direct Bell and her two deputies to seize the reins and rotate the chair. Failure to agree a chairman by the parties will more than likely make the decision for Hain - it will rob Paisley of his demand for regular debates in the Assembly chamber and force the DUP leader into giving direction to the Preparation for Government Committee.
The alternative to accepting responsibility and power-sharing at parliament buildings when the Taoiseach and British prime minister leave the North will be for all 108 members of the Assembly to pick up their P45s, like so many ordinary people before them.
In that eventuality, they will have only themselves to blame because every man and woman in the street in the North is asking: ‘‘Why are these people still being paid?”
Copyright © 2006 Sunday Business Post
DUP clogging up democracy's wheels
Daily Ireland Editorial
The behaviour of the largest unionist party in recent days at Stormont has provided a vivid illustration of the utter determination of the DUP to block political progress here. On Monday, the Preparation for Government Committee convened for the first time. Its name is self-explanatory, but essentially this is a body which owes its existence to the failure of the DUP to grasp the power-sharing nettle. The November deadline set by the British Secretary of State for the restoration of the executive has remained rock-solid despite determined attempts by the DUP to undermine it. The committee is a bit of grease designed to clear the clogged wheel of democracy, but even this seemingly innocuous body has incurred the wrath of Ian Paisley's party.
During Monday's bad-tempered meeting, the DUP blocked attempts to appoint a chairperson because they refused to consider any rota arrangement which included the largest nationalist party, Sinn Féin. Yesterday's session was reported to have been a little less fractious, but even so, two days have now passed without the parties having even cleared the seemingly straightforward obstacle of appointing that chairperson. This delay will have been seen as another small victory by the Paisleyites, but if it is a victory then it has surely come at a high price because never have the carping and obfuscation that have been the hallmark of DUP politics seemed so pointless and so petty to the ordinary people of the North - included among them, dare we say it, some of the DUP's own supporters. People are entitled to suspect that if a basic procedural body such as this preparation committee can be hobbled so readily and so easily by the DUP then the chances of getting any real political business done are more remote than we had hitherto suspected.
The DUP's claim that it's trying to block Sinn Féin's participation in the process because of that party's continuing "links to terrorism" seems awfully dated and pointless now. It was only 12 years ago, 1994, that the unionist bloc on Belfast City Council united to elect the leader of the UVF-linked PUP, Hugh Smyth, as lord mayor of Belfast. This was at a time when the UVF was up to its neck in a bloody campaign of anti-Catholic violence. The list of DUP flirtations with paramilitarism is a lengthy one, made all the more starkly hypocritical by its savaging of the UUP for embracing the current PUP leader, David Ervine. That decision was a rash and ill-advised one for reasons that we have outlined in the past, but clearly the DUP was not best placed to launch the hysterical attack that it did on UUP leader Reg Empey.
All of these things need to be considered by the Irish and British governments as efforts to restore devolution continue apace. The refusal of the direct-rule secretary of state to contemplate deadline-creep, as the DUP had requested, was a small but hopefully significant gesture. Only time will tell, but a bit more resolve like that, and a bit less acrimony at this afternoon's latest preparation committee meeting, could still see us on track for some good news in November.
Copyright © 2006 Daily Ireland
Thursday-Monday, 1-5 June, 2006
Dog days for peace process
By Irish Republican News
The first meeting of an Assembly committee established to outline the path to the restoration of power-sharing has broken up in acrimony.
Proceedings of a new committee at the Belfast Assembly came to a halt as soon when the main parties failed to agree who would be appointed as committee chairperson.
Sinn Fein chief negotiator Martin McGuinness, who led a delegation which included fellow MPs Michelle Gildernew and Conor Murphy, accused the DUP of not being serious about re-establishing the political institutions.
"This is ridiculous," the Mid Ulster MP said. "The DUP won't make a serious effort to engage in the Preparation for Government Committee.
"[British Direct Ruler] Peter Hain needs to make it clear that if the DUP are unwilling to engage then he is prepared to call time on the Assembly." Republicans viewed the move as a predictable attempt by the DUP to undermine peace efforts.
Martin McGuinnes said the DUP had sent low-ranking members to the committee with the "sole objective" of preventing progress. A range of proposals for nominating a chair on a shared or rotational basis were all opposed by the DUP, he added.
Sinn Fein would accept the Rev William McCrea, nominated by the DUP, as a chairman but only on a shared or rational basis, Mr McGuinness said, but that party was unwilling to agree.
The DUP also nominated Alliance member and Assembly Speaker Eileen Bell but she had already ruled herself out.
The DUP was also criticised for already seeking a postponement of the deadline for reaching agreement, which they described as "injury time".
The party is claiming there should be a two-week extension of the November 24th deadline set by London and Dublin for achieving power sharing at Stormont because no business had been scheduled for the Assembly over the past two weeks.
With British Prime Minister Tony Blair and 26-County Taoiseach Bertie Ahern due to travel to Belfast at the end of the month for official negotiations, hopes for an early breakthrough are low.
The SDLP leader also criticised Mr Hain's approach towards the shadow assembly.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan said the DUP was in the business of "carry on vetoing. They set about making sure that this committee could not even do its preliminary business," he said.
"The only people the Secretary of State should be dictated by is the general public and the electorate who want the institutions restored," he said. "It's about time the Secretary of State stopped letting parties pull his strings."
Hain was forced into an embarrassing U-turn at the weekend when he had to change his mind and allow an assembly debate to be held this week.
It had been stated there would be no debates this week as there was no specific business committee recommendation.
However, following a protest by Ian Paisley, who threatened not to make nominations to the new committee, a gathering in Stormont was hastily arranged.
Mr Hain said tonight the committee would meet again tomorrow [Tuesday] afternoon after an Assembly debate on industrial rates.
Refusing the DUP call for a deadline extension, he insisted the November 24th date stood and said he would review progress by the committee before deciding on future business for the Assembly.
Sinn Fein is not taking part in the debates in the assembly chamber, having dismissed it as a talking shop.
Tuesday-Friday, 23-26 May, 2006
Assembly dissembling
By Irish Republican News
British Direct Ruler Peter Hain is to press ahead with the formation of an all-party committee at the new shadow assembly to discuss the return of powers from London to Belfast.
However, confusion lingers over the attitude of the DUP to the committee after party leader Ian Paisley repeatedly rejected the concept.
The party now claims to have "pulled the teeth" of the plan, pointing to assurances from Mr Hain that no "negotiations" would take place within the committee.
The watered-down committee will reportedly only identify obstacles to devolution, which will then be passed on to the traditional negotiations process.
A fresh round of these talks is to take place with the North's political parties in the coming weeks, it was announced on Thursday.
The move was announced by Peter Hain as he also confirmed the first meeting of the committee would take place on June 6th and would focus on preparing for a fresh round of "intensive" negotiations led by the Taoiseach and British Prime Minister.
As Ian Paisley continued to insist "there cannot be another set of negotiations running alongside" the formal peace process, the DUP denied reports that his deputy Peter Robinson had been overruled on the matter.
One DUP MP said: "The real show was always going to be [the parties] with the governments. The idea that a negotiation would take place in this committee was a nonsense."
Sinn Fein Chief Negotiator Martin McGuinness MP has said that his party will judge Peter Hain's proposal for a committee against the clear criteria that it can lead to the return of the power-sharing Executive.
"Sinn Fein have made it clear that the only reason we are taking part in the Hain Assembly is to deliver a power-sharing Executive," he said.
"We will judge Peter Hain's current proposals for a committee against the clear criteria that it can lead to the return of the power-sharing Executive.
"No-one is interested in a powerless talking shop."
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein attacked their SDLP rivals for "falling into the trap of engaging in Wendy House politics" in the shadow assembly.
Fermanagh South Tyrone MP Michelle Gildernew said that orior to May 15t there was a strong consensus between Sinn Fein and at least some members of the SDLP that it was a mistake to engage in the Assembly.
But now they were humiliated by being forced to accept "crumbs off the DUP table".
"This was always the danger," she said. "That the DUP would try and suck people into their preferred model of a shadow Assembly possibly leading to the corporate type Assembly that they have also mooted. Sinn Fein expended considerable effort earlier this year moving the two governments away from this position that represents a serious dilution of the power-sharing Executive core of the Good Friday Agreement.
"The danger for the SDLP is that they are now encouraging the DUP with the mistaken belief that people are prepared to except less than the Good Friday Agreement. Sinn Fein will defend the agreement. Our sole focus is the election of the First and Deputy First Ministers and power-sharing Executive. This is the only way that we will be able remove power from British direct rule ministers and undo the damage being caused by their bad decisions."
Analysis: 'Assembly' is hologram on the hill
By Brian Feeney, for the Irish News
In case you haven't noticed, the assembly meeting up at Stormont isn't the Northern Ireland Assembly established by the Good Friday Agreement. It's 'the assembly' as the school-marmy speaker keeps telling her class.
Oh yes, the speaker. At the first gathering Bob McCartney asked why she was calling herself the speaker when she hadn't been elected by the assembly. Cos our proconsul appointed me speaker, that's why, so there.
It's only after a few meetings that you fully realise what a humiliating sham the whole performance is. Our proconsul appoints the speaker. He decides when the assembly meets. He decides what it can debate - not only the range of topics but he actually determines the order of business. He draws up the order paper. He decides if and when Scotland's first minister is coming over to address the assembly and indeed who else will speak to them and when and how. The assembly of course can make no laws or take any decisions.
Even if by some miracle Ian Paisley had accepted Gerry Adams's nomination on Monday and an executive had been elected, it wouldn't have been to this assembly because this assembly is a virtual assembly.
If by November 24 an executive is elected then the Northern Ireland Assembly will be restored and this assembly will vanish into the ether. Geddit? No? Nor do some of the virtual assembly members who seem quite mystified by the maze our proconsul has lured them into.
None more than the SDLP who appear intending to provide credibility for an assembly they correctly described as a 'kindergarten'. Do they not realise it is a lollipop for unionists who love any flummery which makes them believe they've got a parliament? They love having a 'speaker'. They love playing at all this nonsense of, 'Will my honourable friend agree with me that it is raining incessantly because Sinn Fein do not take their seats at Westminster?' It's the sort of stuff that would disgrace sixth-formers holding a mock parliament in some council chamber. Sinn Fein have got it absolutely right. They will leave the unionists to play with their toys. Here are elected representatives from this part of Ireland called together by the British administration only on days decided by the British proconsul, representatives who are not allowed to elect their own presiding officer, not allowed to determine what they want to debate or even the order of debate and who can be sent home on a date of the proconsul's choosing. Now really. Why would any self-respecting elected representative be party to such a humiliating exercise?
Yet the SDLP, after first saying they wouldn't, have now decided to cooperate with the British administration to act as bit players while unionists preen themselves.
It's a re-run of the 1996 Forum in the old Co-op building that the SDLP made the mistake of attending. Luckily for them Drumcree exploded and gave them a pretext for beating a hasty retreat. How long will it take them to realise this current pantomime is designed solely for unionists' benefit?
On the other hand, if they didn't see the abyss opening during the so-called debate on the economy last week perhaps they never will. The DUP and UUP were in their element. They simply ignored the SDLP whose members forlornly pleaded to be taken seriously.
For some reason SDLP members talk about trying to restore the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement as if this 'assembly' could in some way advance that aim. The plain fact is that the only way you will see movement towards restoring the GFA is when 'the assembly' is consigned to history. 'The assembly' has to be dissolved before the Northern Ireland Assembly is restored. So enhancing 'the assembly' in any way, especially by dignifying unionist-inspired debates cannot aid the restoration of the GFA's institutions. On the contrary, paying lip service to 'the assembly' distracts attention from the main business of 'the assembly' which even the British legislation setting it up says is to elect an executive.
Leaving the unionists talking to each other in this hologram on the hill is the best way to expose that their only aim is to avoid sharing power.
Copyright © 2006 Irish News