Political deadlock in Northern Ireland, which has led London to announce it will call fresh Stormont elections, shows the region’s governance system is “not fit for purpose” and should be reformed, the Taoiseach has said.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Northern Ireland’s nationalist and unionist communities have rightly been required to share power since the Belfast Agreement in 1998 ended three decades of conflict. However, this means each community has a veto over the existence of the Executive and the parties have often made fractious bedfellows in a system of compulsory coalitions where one side cannot govern without the other.
The Taoiseach has, in an interview with the Financial Times, called for reform of the powersharing arrangements enshrined in the agreement.
“There’s a reason why all this came in, in the early years,” he said.
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But now, nearly 25 years on, he said “there is room for the parties to look at changing the system”.
“The system does polarise and it is not fit for purpose … The electoral system should not be one that constantly reinforces polarisation.”
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Mr Martin said any changes to the system should be considered over the next four to five years. Dublin believes reform is a matter for Northern Ireland’s parties and the Irish and UK governments to decide.
The Fianna Fáil leader was speaking ahead of last Friday’s deadline for an Executive to be formed. The DUP has refused since last May’s Assembly elections to return to Stormont because of the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol, which it says has driven a wedge between the North and Britain.
The UK government responded by highlighting its legal duty to call fresh elections — which no party wants — although it did not set a date. December 15th is seen as the likely day for the poll.
Sinn Féin view
Sinn Féin’s Stormont leader Michelle O’Neill said the DUP’s blocking of attempts to restore devolved government was more to do with the party’s distaste for a nationalist party being the largest in Northern Ireland for the first time after May’s election.
“I don’t think it’s lost on the wider public that the DUP don’t like the May election result, I don’t think it’s lost on the wider public that they have difficulty in forming a government to be a deputy first minister to my mandate which is to be the first minister given the recent election results,” she told Sky News on Sunday.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said Britain should “double down” on efforts to resolve the impasse over the protocol rather than calling fresh elections, which would change nothing. He blamed instability and “chaos” at Westminster for the failure of London and Brussels to make progress on the post-Brexit arrangements over recent months.
The centrist Alliance party surged to third place in last May’s election, showing rising numbers of people no longer identify along traditional unionist and nationalist lines. But the political system shuts it out of governmental decisions requiring majority unionist and nationalist support.
“There’s a healthy spread of parties now,” said Mr Martin. “We should explore an amended system.”
London and Dublin hope a powersharing Executive can be in place by next April, the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement, and US president Joe Biden is expected to visit to mark the occasion.
Without a deal between the UK and the EU to overhaul the protocol that the DUP deems acceptable, fresh Assembly elections are widely expected to fail to secure the establishment of a powersharing executive.
— Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022