A pared-down Forum on Peace and Reconciliation, resuming in Dublin today, will be more a monologue than a meeting of minds on the peace process, argues Jane Morrice
Delegates from some political parties north of the Border will converge on Dublin today for the first session of the reconvened Forum on Peace and Reconciliation. They will meet their counterparts from the Republic for an exchange of views on how best to achieve peace and political stability following the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly. But, with only four of the 10 Assembly parties from the North prepared to take part, and the overwhelming majority nationalists, the forum may be more a monologue than a meeting of minds.
The last session of the forum took place in 1997 - light years ago in terms of the political progress since achieved.
Yet, despite the radically changed context, organisers believe they can turn back the clock and revive a structure that was undoubtedly valuable at the time, but whose role in the new inclusive politics of the Good Friday agreement is somewhat questionable.
Forum supporters may argue that they understand the new political context and were hoping, as a result, to have a positive response from unionism to their invitation to participate. The fact that unionists have refused surely indicates that the organisers got it wrong.
It should have come as no surprise that unionists would perceive the new revived forum as a pan-nationalist line-up.
So how should it have been handled? Consultation with all parties involved, including those in Northern Ireland, on whether the forum would be useful and how it should be constituted, would have been a useful starting point. That is how things should be done in a peace and reconciliation process. Simply inviting parties to attend is not sufficient to give them ownership of the process or a stake in the outcome.
Such consultation may have thrown up creative ideas as to how to make the forum more inclusive of unionist/British thinking.
The possibility of sessions in London or Belfast to allow UK parties to offer their analysis alongside unionists could have been discussed or, at the very least, the proposal could have been debated at a meeting of the British-Irish Council.
Consultation of this type may, however, have resulted in the rejection of the idea for a number of reasons - the main one being the need to focus exclusively on the current multi-party talks, which began in Belfast last week.
These talks involve all pro-agreement stake-holders and are valuable because they provide an opportunity for unionists, nationalists, republicans, loyalists and others to challenge each others' perceptions.
While we do not doubt the honourable intention of the forum to act as a pressure point for positive movement in the North, it may have been more useful if the Dublin Government had focused on implementing the Good Friday agreement. It could, for example, have pushed for more movement on the North-South Civic Forum and the North-South Parliamentary Body.
Both are in the agreement and would be more appropriate than the forum in terms of inclusion.
The Irish Government would also be well advised to focus more on its responsibilities as a broker and a signatory of the agreement and less on protecting the interests of one particular section of Northern Ireland's community.
But this was not to be. And so the first meeting of the reconvened Peace and Reconciliation Forum will take place today at Dublin Castle with not a unionist party in sight. With the exception, of course, of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition which, because of the make-up of our party, comes from unionists, nationalists and other backgrounds. We decided to accept the invitation to attend because we firmly adhere to the principle of inclusion.
The Women's Coalition participated in the forum six years ago, and we will attend again, but we are there today to raise our concerns.
We acknowledge that anything pushing for positive progress towards political stability in Northern Ireland is valuable, but we are concerned that the one-sided approach could be counter-productive. We put these views to Brian Cowen when we met him in Belfast three weeks ago. Dialogue on this island and between these islands must involve all parties.
Otherwise, it is little more than a monologue that neither challenges traditional perceptions nor works towards the bridge-building needed for the reconciliation process to work.