It is clear from the results of the Ulster Marketing Surveys poll, conducted on behalf of The Irish Times and RTE's Prime Time, that the Belfast Agreement is still viewed by a sizeable majority of Northern Ireland's citizenry as the best way forward towards prosperity and permanent peace. In spite of violence and threats of violence, in spite of the inability of contending parties to agree, in spite of the failure to date to set up the institutions provided for, it remains the most likely vehicle through which the North can move towards an enduring settlement. Indeed, some of the figures from this survey are more encouraging than might have been expected. There has been a slight increase in the overall support for the Agreement and a measurable increase (from 51 per cent to 58 per cent) among the Protestant population. There is very widespread support, crossing religious and party lines, for the First Minister, Mr David Trimble and for the Deputy First Minister, Seamus Mallon. There is also a widespread recognition that there must be compromise if the Agreement is to move forward, with only the more extreme fringes of unionism now arguing against further compromise. As to where any such movement should begin, there is less agreement. Protestant and Catholic respondents, predictably, tend to fall into line behind the parties which represent their communities. Protestants believe there should be IRA decommissioning before the establishment of an executive. Catholics believe that it is not necessary.
Yet for all that, a majority still wishes to see the Agreement implemented in full, it is impossible not to recognise that it is now in great peril. Sinn Fein declares that it cannot get the IRA to make any gesture on decommissioning and criticises the two governments for adopting what it describes as the "unionist agenda". The governments and the other parties which are committed to exclusively democratic methods will not yield on the question of Sinn Fein entering the executive unless there is something firm on decommissioning from their paramilitary associates. The result is stasis, with the resumed crisis of Drumcree just 10 weeks away, with paramilitaries continuing their low-level attacks and with dissident elements awaiting their chance to inflict another Omagh-type atrocity. There is an inescapable reality in this impasse. The unionists have indicated, time and again, their willingness to be flexible. The IRA has refused even to have a timetable discussed for decommissioning. It has declared that it will never yield up a single bullet or an ounce of explosives. It has refused categorically to state that there is now a permanent and complete end to violence. Faced with this intransigence, there are limits even to the resourcefulness and ingenuity of politicians and officials. They must feel that they are pretty close to being out of new ideas. A sense of failure is closing in and it would be foolish to dismiss as crying "wolf" the warnings from Sinn Fein spokesmen over recent days that disaster looms ahead.
Against such a gloomy background it is important that any last straw should be grasped and explored as a basis for possible progress. Mr John Hume has proposed that Sinn Fein would enter into an undertaking which would have it automatically face expulsion from the executive if there were to be any return to violence by the IRA. It is a variation on the guarantee of good behaviour proposal which Mr Seamus Mallon advanced some months ago under which the SDLP would collapse the executive if the IRA were to resume violence. Initial responses have been negative from both Sinn Fein and unionists but it represents a concept which might be examined, perhaps in tandem with undertakings by the IRA. At this time, short of bringing the executive into being while leaving Sinn Fein out of the equation, there appears to be no more likely card in the hands of any of the players at the table.