As an aside, I note that the reading at Mass yesterday was from Matthew 5:1-12, otherwise known as the beatitudes.

The ball he believes is with the SDLP. And the challenge:

...is that they will be left looking as if they have left unionism to take the moral lead against criminality in government if they push now for further negotiations. A great clarity will descend if they simply accept that the project is over now, that Hume-Adams, from their perspective, was a brave and honest effort that failed.

And he suggests the action that should be taken:

Durkan should do to Hume what Kruschev did to Stalin and be done with the legacy. He should say in the clearest terms that he does not trust Sinn Fein and that he would not have the gall to ask anyone else to. Then he should fight them with unabashed vigour in local government and in Westminster elections, offering to nationalists a party leadership that supports the police, believes in good government and isn't spying on them.

MediaGuardian reports:

It is no coincidence that this hardline paper is appearing now. Sinn Fein has become the overwhelming choice for nationalist voters in Northern Ireland, which presents a problem for the Irish News, long held as the voice of the moderate SDLP. O'Muilleoir may make all the right noises about an island-wide paper, but he knows the majority of his readers are going to come, initially at least, from the north. At the centre of the scrap between Daily Ireland and its more mainstream rival will be a battle for the hearts and minds of a nationalist community in flux. The Irish News, says Belfast-based media commentator Mike Philpott, has been "advertising its Irishness quite aggressively" recently in an attempt to retain potentially fleeing readers.

Noel Doran, the Irish News editor, is circumspect about the chances of his new rival. "It's difficult to see how every new title can prosper. It depends on whether the product is good enough."

However Doran and his team are obviously worried. One of their most vigorous campaigns of late has been to shout down Daily Ireland's application for a £3m start-up grant from the government. "Newspapers stand on their own two feet," he says.

By Alex Kane

Speaking in the Dail on Wednesday afternoon, Bertie Ahern said; “What I find really offensive…is that there was an ability to turn off the punishment beatings while negotiations were in progress , but as soon as the negotiations failed there was a string of them, they are again a nightly occurrence. I will give Sinn Fein full marks for discipline, but not for anything else.”

So there we have it, the Taoiseach is offended by Sinn Fein. He quite explicitly links the political front to the punishment beatings. He has also stood by his view that the IRA carried out the Northern Bank job and that the Sinn Fein leadership was aware of the operation. Yet, according to Michael McDowell, the Irish Minister for Justice (and no slouch when it comes to putting the boot into Sinn Fein); “Mr. Ahern told Mr. Adams and Mr. McGuinness that he is strongly opposed to a policy of exclusion or punishment, because in our view putting people into victim mode is not sensible and doesn’t help the present process.”

Note the use of the term, “in our view”, for this is clearly the view of the Irish Government. The Taoiseach speaks of offence, the Justice Minister accuses Sinn Fein of bad faith, and the Foreign Minister confirms that the process is in great difficulties. But, be that as it may, there is no intention to exclude, sanction, punish or face down. In other words, Sinn Fein has got away with it.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair invites the Sinn Fein leadership for talks and sends his Chief-of-Staff to buy off the loyalist paramilitaries. And President George Bush, who really should know better, refuses to cancel visas, or put a stop to Sinn Fein’s fundraising exercises across the United States.

When unionists complain that they are being punished and deprived of the Assembly because of Sinn Fein/IRA activity, it is only half of the story. The Assembly remains mothballed because the British and Irish governments have no intention of doing anything to upset armed and active republicanism. It isn’t Gerry Adams and P. O’Neill who keep the shutters down at Stormont, it is Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern.

And that is why unionists are wasting their time at meetings in London and Dublin, and wasting even more time with their increasingly monotonous and desperate calls for alternatives to the Assembly. An alternative is a palpable admission of failure. Unionism has come too far and taken too many risks to be fobbed off with second best. Why settle for a consultative Assembly when we already have government by consultation? Why settle for scrutiny committees when Direct Rule ministers would not be accountable to an Assembly, nor bound by the votes that those committees may take?

Unionists are not to blame for the fact that the Assembly isn’t functioning, so they shouldn’t be seen to shoulder the blame by attempting to breathe life into an entity which would be very much inferior to what they had.

The British and Irish governments are convinced that unionists have no breaking point; indeed, their whole approach is predicated on that conviction. And since they believe that unionists will remain put, come what may, Tony and Bertie will play the long game, forget about sanctions and bank on unionists buckling first when new negotiations are kickstarted in a few months time.

Remaining put is no longer a serious option; for unionists, all of them, are being played for suckers by cynical and spineless governments. In essence, the governments are waiting for unionists to "settle down and face political reality". They believe we will pay almost any price for devolution on other peoples' terms. It's about time we proved them wrong.

First published in the Newsletter on Saturday 29th January 2005

His suggested re-arrangement is this:

Northern Ireland should be divided into three administrative areas - The North and West, the South and West and the Greater Belfast area.

Each area would comprise six parliamentary constituencies and the 36 MLAs within them. Such an arrangement would avoid the long process required if a Boundary Commission was to draw new areas of local government.

The 36 MLAs would initially constitute the first council for each area. The next local government elections would be postponed and the existing 26 councils would continue to operate for a further two years to allow a smooth transfer of functions.

These functions would be supplemented by moving significant responsibility for a range of matters, including education, health, planning, environment, and, possibly, housing to the new area councils.

Policy would continue to be a matter for the NIO or any future devolved government.

Local identity would be preserved by the creation of 36 voluntary 'parish' councils or communes chaired by one of the area council MLAs. Referrals on local issues to the area council would be through the relevant MLA.

The provision of reserved powers to the Secretary of State or some future devolved executive would ensure that a minority community in any of the three areas received equality of treatment.

Similarly, central approval for any significant capital investment project might be a matter for consultation.

The proposals could give powers to the three administrative areas largely similar to those in Scotland and would drastically cut the cost of administration by reducing the number of councils and quangos.

Locally elected representatives would be both accessible and accountable.

The speed with which the new administrations could be put in place, coupled with the use and preservation of the elected MLAs and party infrastructure would answer some of the political problems of the present situation.

Parties would be enabled to maintain their support staff and constituency advice centres. Indeed, the Assembly as a political entity separate from any Executive might be retained in the meantime as a purely consultative body to whom the Secretary of State might refer matters affecting the whole of Northern Ireland.

The commitment of the existing MLAs for a period of, say, five years until new area council elections were held would provide an opportunity for all to work together on socio/economic issues for the benefit of the entire community without the political burden of dealing with constutional issues.

It is not suggested that these proposals are any more than a possible, somewhat bare, framework and a tentative answer to the question, 'Where do we go from here?

There is a present feeling in the whole community that, in the wake of a patently failed process, what is required is a period of stable democratically accountable and accessible administration.

Such a breathing space would allow people to take stock of the new political landscape and permit the material and social benefits enjoyed in recent years by the middle and business classes to be extended to areas of disadvantage suffering from paramilitary exploitation.

One Small Step chairman Trevor Ringland said: "The One Small Step campaign believes that Northern Ireland's future must be a shared one and that the only way to achieve this is if we all try to overcome the many barriers, large and small, that divide us.

"This ad is about saying to people that they have their own individual part to play in securing a better, shared future and must consciously start taking small steps to break down the barriers of misunderstanding, hatred and distrust that hold Northern Ireland back.

"The ad shows ordinary, every day people from Northern Ireland confronted by a barrier of words including sectarian and racist taunts and words such as fear, division and violence. The people are depicted stepping through the barrier and emerging to realise the significance and benefit of what they have done.

"The One Small Step Campaign believes that only the collective will of the people can secure lasting peace and a truly stable society and we hope that in the coming months and beyond, individuals and organisations will consciously do what they can do to take Northern Ireland a step forward.

"We hope that people will decide what small steps are appropriate for them and take action. For example, someone who has rarely interacted with members of “the other community” could do something as small as reading a little bit about another tradition or reading a newspaper from “the other side”. This would be a significant step relevant to them individually.

"Someone else may decide that they are in a position to go a bit further and could perhaps go to a religious service of another tradition to broaden their knowledge, or engage in some kind of community relations work. Everyone can and should do something which will make a difference in the context of a collective effort.

"We have overcome many barriers in Northern Ireland but there are still many in front of us and we need to work together to ensure that we deal with them effectively."

The reason Sinn Féin is worried is clear. Bertie Ahern is the only figure who comes near in stature to Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams among Irish American leaders, so when he speaks in such critical terms it has a major impact on the dynamic. Ahern's dedicated work over the years on the peace process and his 'get along manner' have ensured he is a popular figure in Washington and elsewhere. The Irish government's position in effect, is the touchstone for most Irish American politicians. When Ahern turned his fire on Sinn Féin he created a lot of puzzlement and confusion among Irish American leaders.

Paisley Sr was so incensed by the idea of legislation on 'gay marriage' being extended to Northern Ireland that he demanded and got a postponement of the vote on the Civil Partnership Bill during the Leeds Castle talks last year. Looks like Paisley is still trying to 'Save Ulster from Sodomy'...

From the Irish News Last Year

On This Day/March 31 1935 By Eamon Phoenix

"It is time that this should stop," said Mr de Valera, who added that if the IRA wanted to secure control of the country the way was open to them by seeking election from the people.
"It is time that this violence should stop. Violence by one section leads to violence by the other. The result is anarchy and ultimately one form or another of dictatorship. At the least, it brings comfort and encouragement to the enemies of this country and it creates dissension and weakness among ourselves.

McIntyre writes:

Throughout the peace process a binding rule was that of creative ambiguity. There was an institutional acknowledgement that the IRA, although on ceasefire, would be permitted to engage in a little 'internal housekeeping'. The governments would look the other way when a mutilation was inflicted, a dissident republican murdered, kidnapped or disappeared. The unwritten agreement was explained to IRA members by their leaders. A policy of 'no claim no blame' would apply to all IRA operations; if arrested, the one thing volunteers must not do is admit that they were on 'IRA business'.

There's a mixture of anger, frustration and disillusionment in Liam Clarke's editorial in the Sunday Times. In response to the Taoiseach's remarks in the Dail about how Ahern and other parties had worked to bring Sinn Fein into the process, Clarke wrote that it "was like Dr Frankenstein’s recounting of his generosity to the monster he could no longer control".

Clarke argues that there is a republican veto hanging over the entire process:

Sinn Fein has also managed to get its ideas accepted. It has made such a shibboleth of “inclusivity” that a devolved government in Northern Ireland seems to be unthinkable without its involvement. “Exclusion”, even in the wake of robberies and shootings, is such a dirty word that the SDLP dare not form a coalition without Sinn Fein.

The result is that all parties will, unless the SDLP has a change of heart, be excluded from taking part in a power-sharing executive and the Northern Ireland assembly may be wound up. The point is that it is not as much of a punishment for Sinn Fein as the other parties.

Tony Blair has hinted that Sinn Fein could be sidelined in "another way forward", as did the Secretary of State. Are they serious?

In Paul Murphy's response to Seamus Mallon in Westminster, he said:

[Mallon] makes a point about the negotiation process, and perhaps it is time to take on a different type of negotiation. That will result largely from my discussions in the weeks ahead with political parties.

Apparently rejecting voluntary coalition on the basis that there weren't enough volunteers (ie the SDLP), Murphy said: "Therefore, there must be other ways. The point is also to end criminality so that we have a wholesome and uncorrupted politics in Northern Ireland."

And when Peter Robinson asked him "Why is democracy in Northern Ireland to be held back because of gunmen and gangsters? Surely the time has come to make it very clear that politics moves on, and moves on without them", Murphy replied "It may have to be that".

Yet despite the warnings to Sinn Fein, the problem for the British Government is that it has no credibility when it adopts a tough line with Sinn Fein. Sanctions can be sidestepped nicely until the next IMC report (which will be brought forward), and even if SF were to be excluded from negotiations for a period, we end up back where we started. Blair's problem, as someone said recently, is that he has drawn so many lines in the sand, he's run out of beach. The Government might demand clarity, but it is so addicted to process and spin that it cannot take the lead.

Writing in Parliamentary Brief, Professor of Politics at Queen's University, Belfast, Paul Bew raises some fundamental yet unanswered questions from the 'Comprehensive Agreement' that will no doubt crop up again when crisis threatens.

What was the IRA’s ‘new mode’ to be? The IRA’s statement of December 9 talked of continuing ‘activities’. What exactly were these to be? What was the status of the IRA’s training manual, the Green Book? Why in neither this document nor any other document bearing on the Comprehensive Agreement is mention not made of criminal activities like money laundering and cross border smuggling? Why did the governments not explicitly ask the IRA to respect property rights?

If ambiguity is out, acts of completion due and lines in the sand drawn and crossed, these sorts of questions should have been dealt with long before publishing the 'Comprehensive Agreement'. They mirror unwanted questions that the Northern Bank heist forced the governments to face - what actually constitutes paramilitary and criminal activity; who are the legal authorities on the island and who defines the rule of law?

That they haven't is an acknowledgement that the Government has failed to persuade Sinn Fein to accept the need for 'straight talking', which former Secretary of State John Reid demanded after Stormontgate. When he said you couldn't blame anyone for believing republicans "are trying to ride two horses" he didn't say he was prepared to accept the situation himself. If Blair's 'acts of completion' speech is to mean anything, it means he has to ask unavoidable questions about fundmental republican beliefs and intentions.

The notion of ridding the process of the doublespeak contained within 'creative ambiguity' that inevitably leads to crisis is not a new one. A breakdown of communication when one party derives a radically different interpretation of any agreement from the others leads to further breakdowns in relations between parties, in confidence and in trust.

It is this deliberate openness of interpretation in what the Governments put on paper that gives everyone 'wriggle room' for when things go wrong. If the process is to remain inclusive, the Governments will always provide fast-tracked forgiveness, space or cover to those who provide the greatest threat to stability. The British believe this to be the IRA, and since Blair is ultimately more concerned about bombs going off in London than anything else, unionists have perceived inclusion as a policy of appeasement. It might well be a lesson the UDA have learned too.

If parties get themselves onto a hook, such as decommissioning, you can depend on the governments to dig them out of the hole. Keeping everyone on board has become a greater priority than adhering to democratic standards. As it is often electorally advantageous for parties to stall on a deal until after elections, it means the Governments expend most of their efforts on a very narrow focus on the 'problem parties', excluding moderates, in the intervening period.

Because those who create obstacles must be kept on board, the Government must always give a little, but can take little in return. This creates the impression that intransigence is rewarded, and indeed it often is at the polls. But the Government has no choice but to keep returning to the table with more carrots and, when parties have a larger mandate, less stick. Currently, the DUP and Sinn Fein have the ability to switch the process on and off like a light bulb.

The semantic somersaults the language used in 'agreements' permits, leads to such drastically different readings that you could reasonably conclude that no agreement had actually been reached. Until common standards, definitions and interpretations are nailed down and agreed, participants in future talks may as well be speaking two different languages. Sadly, clarification between governments and parties of aspects of any deal is kept secret.

The governments' desire is to keep the process moving, because stalling creates a vacuum where anything might happen. That can suit both unionists and republicans alike, since they can simply stall on any particular issue until they gain some concessions. Issues that threaten to create permanent obstacles are farmed out to commissions so they can be dealt with down the line.

However, the peace train appears to be running out of track.

The two governments are as culpable as any of the parties about using get-out clauses or loopholes. 'Creative ambiguity' is what allows the Irish Government to lead us to believe the killers of Garda McCabe would remain in prison, while considering their release as part of the political deal last year. It's what allows paramilitaries to shoot people within their own communities, because the Government doesn't consider it a ceasefire breach.

Writing in the Enquirer in March 2003, William A. Hazleton, a former senior fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University, summarised:

[T]he price of preserving the peace process was "constructive ambiguity" in what the Agreement meant and what it required. This allowed incompatible objectives to be accommodated, with nationalists and republicans seeing the Agreement as a step toward a united Ireland and unionists as securing Northern Ireland's place in the United Kingdom. Similarly, troublesome issues, like IRA decommissioning, were left deliberately vague to keep the process moving ahead.

The Agreement also left the North's sectarian divisions in place, if not strengthened. This has fueled uncertainty and distrust, particularly among working-class Protestants and Catholics, which periodically ignites at any number of flash points. Not surprisingly, then, the Agreement's implementation has become yet another battleground for communal aspirations cloaked in insistent demands of what was promised and to whom.

Pat Leahy detects a shift in attitudes down south too. After the Taoiseach's admission that "everything possible" was done to bring Sinn Fein "into the centre by ignoring all kinds of things", he now faces a dilemma. He supports a coalition government in the north that must involve a party he believes is associated with criminality, when he has specifically ruled it out in the Dail.

Of course, the Dail has a stable voluntary coalition government, and therefore has the luxury of being able to survive a crisis of trust and confidence beween parties.

Ahern opposes sanctions against Sinn Fein, and the Department of Foreign affairs has tried to smooth over any issues concerning Washington visas for St Patrick's Day, so unionists may see his demand for a clear statement from the IRA on ending illegal activity as lacking bite.

The Irish Foreign Minister wrote:

There remains an ambiguity about whether the full range of activities described in paragraph 13 [of the Joint Declaration] has been dealt with. Unless this aspect of the issue is addressed to the satisfaction of everyone, the prospect of inclusive partnership government being restored is unlikely to be translated into reality.

That wasn't Minister Dermot Ahern speaking last month. It was Brian Cowen in May 2003. History is repeating, and patterns are emerging.

The Cruiser reckons that American influence may play a part in a hardening the Irish line against Sinn Fein, making the invitation list of northern politicos to the White House this St Paddy's Day potentially interesting reading - assuming it isn't blank.

Leahy writes in the Sunday Business Post:

Politics is rarely about attractive choices - it's often about the least unpalatable choice. Previously, the governments judged that fudging the violence and decommissioning issue was an acceptable price to pay in the short-term.

But as Sinn Fein's support rises and punishment beatings and robberies continue - and, crucially, the IRA campaign recedes into memory - that judgment is being reviewed.

With despondency creeping into the process, Paul Bew writes of it:

That project has taken a very big hit, following on from other very big hits in 2003, and there is no getting away from that grim reality. Northern Ireland faces a political Dark Age. There is but one very slim hope of avoiding a dangerous polarisation of the two communities: a new coalition of the decent based on the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP in the North and mainstream unionist and nationalist opinion on an all-Ireland basis.

The elements of agreement are clear: the principle of consent, exclusion of Sinn Fein from government while the IRA retains its ‘capacity’ to rob banks, the need for power-sharing and north south cooperation. The SDLP has already advanced interesting if imperfect ideas in this area. It is a pivotal moment but it won’t come to anything unless the Irish government throws its weight behind constitutional nationalism in the North in a way that it has not been doing for at least two years.

Former UDA member (now target) Davy Adams suggests that one legacy of our violent past may be our moral desensitisation.

Adams writes that:

[T]he prolonged period of violent upheaval in Northern Ireland has resulted in legal, democratic and even moral points of reference having shifted, disappeared or been distorted to such an extent that notions of legality or right and wrong are now something - for the elites at least - which can be made up as you go along.

Normality can, in simple terms, be defined as that which happens on a regular basis, and so decades of violence and criminality have, to a frightening degree, come to be accepted as the norm.

In a pessimistic article, Adams adds:

In order to end the conflict, we gambled - rightly, I believe - on opening up the political mainstream, including executive office, to those who were formerly excluded because of their links to paramilitary organisations. Up to this point, at least, the gamble has failed.

Where once they had only paramilitary power, now, with feet firmly planted in both camps, they have substantial political clout as well. Instead of creating the inclusive democracy we had hoped for, we are now closer to having built a mafia state. In future years, Northern Ireland may be retrieved, but at the moment even the most optimistic among us are struggling to find a bright spot on the horizon.

One of the by-products of an inclusive approach means talks proceed at the pace of the slowest. Effectively, the two largest parties hold vetoes over the advance of the process, meaning the 'inclusive' talks are dictated by the agendas of just the two largest parties. Since they have to agree in the first instance, other parties are marginalised until a deal is practically on the table. This in turn puts pressure on the other parties to sign up, since no-one wants to be blamed for scuppering a peace deal.

Achieving agreement acceptable to all means compromise, and where issues cannot be resolved, that means creating fudge in order to get parties to sign up to a quick-fix, short-term plan to keep things going for another while. There is little consideration given to how the matter will be tackled when it comes back to haunt politicians.

As McIntyre says:

At first glance it would appear that the dishonesty which lubricated the peace process has now clogged it up. The response to the robbery has dwarfed anything previously hurled Sinn Fein's way. Yet, the party only has to sit it out and its fortunes will turn around. The British general election will take place this year. A fresh approach will be taken with the peace process. The Irish leader, Bertie Ahern, will lick his wounds caused by what he feels is a lying Sinn Fein leadership. Tony Blair will behave as Tony Blur. Things will be cobbled together again.

For the governing class, getting rid of the IRA is what the peace process is about. Their engagement in it will stop once the IRA goes. For Sinn Fein that moment has to be postponed for as long as possible. Without the piper of the IRA there are no tunes to be called.

Clifford Smyth asks the question unionists are now pondering:

At the heart of the ‘peace process’ remains the unanswered question; is Sinn Fein on a journey towards democracy, or have these contemporary exponents of the republican tradition taken the nineteenth century Irish nationalist Charles Parnell’s cynical advice: to engage in constitutional politics while maintaining a criminal organisation outside the law?

While one Sindo columnist said Mary McAleese spoke for him in her initial comments, the News Letter leader says that despite the apology, the damage has been done. Ruth Dudley Edwards suggests that the President could atone by acknowledging and challenging sectarianism within her own community, and mentions an "illuminating debate on www.sluggerotoole.com"...

Adams' answer on Inside Politics to who knew what and when regarding the Northern heist and on who was responsible is interesting, for those who like to dissect these things. Evasive?

He also dismissed the Taoiseach's accusation that Sinn Fein could turn IRA violence on and off, depending on the state of political play. Others have already disagreed, and the Irish Justice Minister has long held the view that Sinn Fein has influence over 'internal housekeeping' matters and so-called 'punishment' attacks, such as these recent ones.

Adams suggests that politics can still advance on other agendas, and doesn't rule out an Assembly without an Executive, which fits in with the possibility of a scrutiny function for MLAs.

And he's probably right. Given, as he points out -

Republicans, and that includes Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, have a big credibility problem with everyone else in the process, particularly in light of the Taoiseach's claim that the Sinn Féin leadership had prior knowledge of the Northern Bank job.

If the IRA decommissioned skip-loads of guns and Semtex outside Ian Paisley's door in front of BBC, UTV and RTÉ cameras and vowed on a stack of Free Presbyterian issue Bibles that it would end all activity, it wouldn't cut the mustard now.

And it would be difficult to argue with his summation of opinion beyond the one party that believes 'P O'Neill'.

Listen to a summarised cross-section of opinion beyond the republican heartlands. "The Provos just don't get it," said the Dublin insider. "How can we move forward when the parties don't believe a word they say?" from a despairing London counterpart. "They blew it," said the DUP man. "The Provos are in Egypt," said the Ulster Unionist.Where? "In The Nile. De-Ni-Al."

There's a favourable review of Bertie's performance in the Dail -

The old ones are the worst all right, but that certainly has been the defensive strategy of Sinn Féin all this week as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness and the entire republican movement were assailed from all quarters, and most effectively from the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in the Dáil on Wednesday.

It was high-value theatre: Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, at his loftiest and most episcopal, declaiming republican innocence and hurt from the eminence of the Sinn Féin benches. But he was no match for the Taoiseach, at ground level, who opted for Joxer Daly-type Dublin tones to rout his opponent.

It wounded, but still Sinn Féin would not be forced from the headquarters script: deny, deny, deny.

But he argues that the financial sanctions, which the IMC are widely expected to impose, will not provide any impetus for movement

So, it's a question of who you believe and right now it's debatable whether even ordinary republicans credit the protestations of Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness. Venture beyond the gilded republican circle and observe the sly smirk followed by, "Of course it was the IRA, and more luck to them." Be sure, too, that the Independent Monitoring Commission believes Hugh Orde above P. O'Neill and will say so shortly by imposing financial penalties on Sinn Féin.

That will make a minor point and give republicans another excuse to play the victimhood card, but it's an inconsequential sub-plot. The big issue is whether there is any medium-term way out of this shambles. The more atavistic commentators and observers demand a perpetual exclusion of Sinn Féin from the process. The governments and the pragmatists in the parties, including in the DUP, know that that's a cul-de-sac, but again, such is the credibility issue for republicans that it's difficult to see a way out of this dead end.

He certainly doesn't appear to be among those who actually believe 'P O'Neill', and suggests two possible reasons for the Northern raid, one "malign" and the other "benign"

So, why did the IRA do it? Here are two scenarios to consider. The first, and most malign, is from a senior nationalist who is now convinced that the provisional republican movement effectively has abandoned the Belfast Agreement.

In brief he argued that Sinn Féin and the IRA reckons it's pointless "wasting time in trying to do a deal with the DUP" when with its electoral power bases in the North and South, it should be aiming for bigger gains, particularly when there is now a real chance of achieving the balance of power in the Republic. Therefore, bypass the agreement and strive to leapfrog to joint authority to enhance the chances of a united Ireland by 2016.

The second scenario is that the IRA gave the go-ahead for the robbery only after the collapse of the talks in December. Republicans believed that unionists, especially with Ian Paisley talking of humiliating the IRA and Sinn Féin, had spurned a good deal and needed to be taught a salutary lesson short of a return to war. Sure, where was the political danger; wouldn't the robbery be yesterday's news in a week or two?

Which is rather like the old joke of King Billy meeting a dejected King James after the Battle of the Boyne. "Don't worry about it, Jimmy," he says, "this'll all be forgotten about in a week."

It's no surprise to see that his reading is that the "more benign" scenario is preferred by the two governments, despite the "monumental mess" that they now face -

So far the governments are leaning towards this second, slightly more benign explanation of events. But if that was the gambit it's fair to say republicans miscalculated hugely.

Ian Paisley would indeed enter into a government with Sinn Féin if the IRA visibly disarmed and ended paramilitarism and criminality but, to quote the DUP source, only after 12 to 18 months of first testing any commitments from the IRA and Sinn Féin. How can that work? It's a monumental mess.

Republicans have raised the bar so high for themselves that it just might be insurmountable the next time there is a serious attempt to find a deal - in the autumn? In 2006? 2007?

And a bleak assessment for the foreseeable future, with no apparent solutions, beyond waiting and 'talking tough'... with fingers crossed.

Right now, Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair don't have any solutions. That's why they asked Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to go away and reflect and to come back when they had something constructive to offer. Seems fair enough: republicans engineered the crisis, and only they can get us out of it.

I've no sound to, so can't check this suggested link, but it should be OK to listen to.

It's worth reading in chronological order but I'll pick out some of my own favourites -

410 Romans go home. The Dark Ages begin; Saxons, Angles, Danes, Vikings, etc arrive (see The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis).

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1265 First House of Commons sits, then gets up, citing boredom.

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June 23 1348 A Gascon merchant ship docks in Weymouth Bay, bringing the Pestilence, also known as the Great Mortality and, later, the Black Death. A third of the population of England and Wales die. King Philip VI of France asks the priests for an explanation. They explain that God is angry. God is re-angered in 1361, 1368, 1374, 1379 and 1390.

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1546 Syphillis epidemic. Henry VIII implicated.

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1652 Coffee arrives, at last.

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1649-1660 Commonwealth and the Protectorate. Everyone wears black and pretends to believe in God. Great swathes of the population die of boredom.

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1848 Karl Marx writes The Communist Manifesto in the British Library's Reading Room, while eating sandwiches and drinking coffee.

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1963 Sexual intercourse begins, according to the poet Philip Larkin.

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2002 Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, the last Empress of India, dies. Gin sales slump; vodka sales soar.

( * - I know, I know.. but them's the facts )

Press Association reported:

[A] spokesperson for President McAleese said her comments, which come ahead of a planned visit to Belfast next month, were in the context of a discussion on the Holocaust.

"Throughout her career she had continually tried to transcend the barriers of sectarianism."

Unionism often defines itself by the role it played in WW2. But now it is almost as though unionism's critics are accusing it of having been on the wrong side - something that causes huge offence, and never seems to result in the introspection or debate within unionism that the critics perhaps intended.

I won't even mention that Johnny Adair's first post-release visitors to Bolton were a group of German neo-Nazis.

"Her neutral stance during World War II may have damaged her international interests; at the very least it damaged her pyschologically. When Harold Laski argued in 1951 that 'the real alternative to the House of Commons is the concentration camp' it is conceivable that his meaning would have been lost on those Irish political leaders who had endured only vicariously the ravages of war. By remaining outside the hostilities 'Dark Rosaleen' placed herself in a lower division of the international order".

Dr Sacks said a "murdered generation" of six million Jews, together with tens of thousands of Roma, disabled, homosexuals and others, had been gassed and burnt for no other reason than that they were different. The victims included 1.5 million children. Dr Sacks paid tribute to survivors, of whom 600 were present along with former soldiers who liberated the camp, but questioned how they had found the courage to continue, having witnessed such horrors. "Just as the eye can be blinded by too much light, so the soul can be broken by too much darkness. Yet theirs were not," he said. "They reaffirmed life, built families and cared for one another. They bore witness to what happened, with no hate or desire for revenge, but simply to remember the victims, so that robbed of their lives they would not be robbed also of their deaths."

He continued: "The survivors have borne the weight of memory. Now we must carry it and hand it on to our children."

President Mary McAleese was at the centre of a sectarian row tonight after claiming Protestant children in the North were taught to hate Catholics in the same way Nazis despised Jews.

Unionists were astonished and incensed by the comparison from a head of state who has cited strengthening cross-community relations as a key aim of her Presidency.

After pointing out that the British and US governments' attitude to terrorism, Hayes suggested some areas where sanctions might be taken against Sinn Fein.

Hayes said:

The Minister should pursue the financing of all paramilitary organisations and terrorism. Senator McHugh referred to this issue. He has evidence of money laundering in County Donegal by a paramilitary political party. It must be closed off if we are serous about this legislation. The Criminal Assets Bureau must also be employed to pursue warlords and close them down. I have received two letters from people in a town in Donegal who allege that legitimate businesses are a front for Sinn Féin-IRA to launder money and to control parts of the town. We are obliged to go after them.

I agree with other speakers in that we must co-operate with all agencies on the island of Ireland in terms of our efforts in these matters. One such matter was recently brought to my attention by the SDLP concerning the electoral returns office in Northern Ireland and our own public offices commission in terms of the scrutiny of expenditure by some political parties during election time.

There is a quote in the middle of this 'hoopla' that could indicate a more serious side to this story -

"Blogs are a real-world temperature gauge as to what's really going on out there," said Tim Hanlon, senior vice president at advertising-media company Starcom IP. "You've got big media at one end and the citizen's media at the other, and the collision between those diametrically opposed approaches to messaging will be very intriguing."

It will be interesting to see if there are any further developments in this area.

But Intelliseek are not leaving anything to chance -

Intelliseek, via its site BlogPulse.com, plans to monitor the hoopla up to and surrounding the Super Bowl. The company also has recruited 50 enthusiastic bloggers to actively critique the commercials so that it can send a feed to its advertising clients.

Just in case the bathroom breaks do win the battle over "couch time with the commercials" that is.

At lunch time in the Seanad, the Justice Minister Michael McDowell laid heavily into Sinn Fein, making direct comparisons between the killings at Teebane with the 'separations' in the death camp at Auschwitz. In effect he gets at the sectarian nature of the operation, and the political direction behind it. The report will become live at the Oireachtas site in about an hour and a half.

Update: The minister obviously had his massacre's mixed. Teebane was the result of an IRA bomb, whilst the separation happened at Kingsmill, nearly twenty years earlier.

Update to the update: the Minister later corrected himself on radio

The polemic is seering:

"The same intellectual activity which drove a man standing at the railway platform in Auschwitz - to send people right and left into different groups for different fates - was standing in a balaclava at Teebane crossroads when a group of workers was segregated into Protestant and Catholic and the former group was riddled by the Provisional IRA. On this Holocaust memorial week, this spirit is not dead - it is the same spirit which had Ratko Mladic and others separate the boys from others at Srebenica and bring them to quarries to execute them with the same ferocity. If what happened at Teebane crossroads is not a crime in the minds of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, it is they who have a problem - not us."

We understand this is only the beginning of the kind of gloves off attacks that Sinn Fein may expect from all political sides in the Republic in the wake of a crime that few outside the Republican movement doubt was undertaken by the IRA.

Mick Fealty @ 04:32 PM | Comments (51)

The real power of blogging!
If you want to understand the value add of blogging, check out the latest coup from worldbankpresident.org. The current incumbent, James Wolfenden reads the month old blog, and is using it as an active tool. He even took a printout of the site into his latest meeting with US Treasury Secretary John Snow, who as Bush's point man will be key in the decision of who's appointed the bank's next head man, or woman - of whom, according to the site, there are at least four in the race.

Mick Fealty @ 04:07 PM | Comments (0)

The real danger of securocrats?
Mick Hall is not one of the usual suspects that have consistently got on the collective backs of Sinn Fein. But he argues that the insistence on blaming annonymous Securocrats is beginning to get on the nerves even of those well disposed towards the party. Not only is getting harder to sustain belief in, but in continuing to push it may lead the party into some politically dangerous areas:

...by suggesting these securocrats are a rogue element within SIS and the NIO who can go about their business without fear of exposure, Sinn Fein may well be treading a very dangerous path indeed. The whole basis of the demand for a public enquiry into collusion by the British State with loyalist paramilitaries, plus strategically placed PIRA volunteers such as Freddie Scappaticci is that this collusion was not a matter of a small number of British intelligence operatives overstepping the line without the knowledge of their superiors, but it was part and parcel of British strategy within the north of Ireland, which had been agreed upon at the highest level of the British State.

Mick Fealty @ 12:50 PM | Comments (7)

Environment: the virtuous Irish?
Ireland's come 21st out of 146 countries in an environmental sustainability index put together by Yale and Columbia Universities. However the Friends of Irish Environment argued that this position was falsely inflated, and masked a deterioration in air quality, land use, waste management and greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. This is one to keep an eye on for future years.

Mick Fealty @ 12:05 PM | Comments (1)

America snubbing republicans..?
THE New York Sun launches a stinging attack on Sinn Fein, saying the party should not be in Washington on St Patrick's Day and urging punitive action to be taken by the US Envoy Mitchell Reiss. The Irish Echo reports continuing uncertainty about the involvement of local parties in the White House event on St Paddy's Day, and tells us that despite giving him a visa, a meeting between SF's Gerry Kelly and a displeased Reiss was passed to a State Department official instead.

Writing in the New York Sun, Ed Moloney said Bush was in a difficult position regarding a meeting with Gerry Adams. Moloney wrote:

It is a tough decision, because either way the president will likely come under criticism. Banning Adams, as an angry administration source hinted the president is considering, will attract hostility from Irish-Americans, a constituency the Republican Party has been wooing in recent years, with some success. But allowing him to attend will leave the White House open to accusations that it has double standards on terrorism.

The Sun's editorial was so stridently forthright in its attack, it almost sounded like a DUP press release:

Sinn Féin/IRA is one of the most anti-American political movements in Western Europe: its newspaper, for example, has described Colin Powell as a war criminal. Its foreign cognates are such terrorist groupings as the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hezbollah, the Colombian FARC and the Basque separatists of ETA. If it ever joins a coalition government in the Irish Republic, it will make the southern state more hostile to our interests: think of the difficulty which even the current Irish government had in securing landing rights at Shannon for American military aircraft during the liberation of Iraq.
...
It is intolerable that the commander in chief of the world's only superpower should be humiliated in this way by a group of two-bit provincial hoods masquerading as freedom fighters.
...
St Patrick's Day is a celebration of the Irish contribution to civilization. The Sinn Féin/IRA leadership represents the antithesis of that proud heritage. We do not need them here.

* * *

The Echo reported that the US President felt rather like Bertie Ahern does right now - frustrated and conned:

"It would be embarrassing after all these years of supporting the presence of Sinn Féin here as a player in the peace process to have to go back to our districts and say 'they're just a bunch of robbers,'" said one member of Congress who did not want to be identified.

Irish diplomats said plans for the upcoming St. Patrick's Day celebration at the White House have been put on hold.

U.S. officials want a clearer picture of the bank raid, see the results of the meeting between Adams and Ahern in Dublin, and take into account the view of British Prime Minister Tony Blair before deciding how to proceed.

"The Taoiseach will definitely be handing over the bowl of shamrock, it's a question of whether there will be anyone else there," said one Irish diplomat. Meanwhile, uncertainty over the White House's plans for St. Patrick's Day has caused American University in Washington to delay assembling a presentation on the North because it has been unable to ascertain if representatives of the North's various political parties will be in the city on March 17.

Indications this week from Irish, British and U.S. officials were that the uncertainty might continue for some days yet.

Belfast Gonzo @ 12:03 PM | Comments (10)

Did devolution deliver..?
BRENDAN Keenan wonders if devolution actually makes any positive difference to the Northern Ireland economy. Meanwhile, a new report indicates that while southerners are tighening their belts in a 'Rip-off Ireland' where both the quality and cost of living are increasing, more northerners living outside Greater Belfast saw an improvement in their lifestyles than those within the city limits.

Keenan wrote:

The annual "subvention" of spending over local revenues is around £5bn (€7bn), out of total current spending of £14bn. There may be a perception that Northern Ireland has to go begging to London for this money each year. But it does not work like that.

In practice, Chancellor Gordon Brown decides what he is going to do about UK public spending, and the devolved regions get their share. The amount is calculated under an elaborate formula, which is also applied to Scotland and Wales. This "Barnett formula" may be revised as circumstances change, but it is hard to see how it could ever be abolished.

Recently, it has been delivering lots of extra cash, as Mr Brown throws money at the public services. There is little chance of the public sector's share of the North's economy declining, while London is ramping up public spending by 15pc over the next three years. Equally, the expected cutbacks after the May general election will cause a disproportionate cooling on the North's economy, although the effects will not be felt until 2009.

In this context, what difference can a local administration make? There was quite a fuss a few weeks ago when Bank of Ireland economist Alan Bridle argued in a newspaper article that it would make no difference at all. "Arguably, the economy is doing better in spite of, rather than because of, the politics," he wrote.

Belfast Gonzo @ 11:52 AM | Comments (11)

A question of truth telling and democracy?
Two of this week's Telegraph columnists posed questions of Bertie Ahern this week. Steven King last night asked if he would defend democracy or adopt the usual tactic of carry on regardless. Earlier Malachi O'Doherty pointed out that the two versions of the truth could not be true, and that either the Taoiseach or the President of Sinn Fein was lying over the involvement of the IRA in the bank heist. In the end that was not the ground the SF leader chose to defend.

Mick Fealty @ 11:43 AM | Comments (1)

Blair asked to say sorry over injustice...
THE Irish News is campaigning for a public apology from the Prime Minister for the jailing of Guiseppe Conlon, who was wrongly accused of bomb attacks in Guildford and Woolwich in 1974 and died in prison. The family visits the Taoiseach today to ask for support.

Belfast Gonzo @ 11:38 AM | Comments (18)

Kelly downgraded in Washington...
In what looks like a concerted effort between all the major government players, Gerry Kelly's meeting in Washington was downgraded from Mitchell Reiss to a senior official in his department.

Mick Fealty @ 11:35 AM | Comments (1)

All bets off for Northern nationalism?
Most worrying for Sinn Fein is the talk by both Premiers of a new state of all bets are off. Even Tony Blair is now talking of moving on without the party. He also suggested that it's not SF, but the SDLP which faces some tough decisions about the way ahead.

Mick Fealty @ 11:27 AM | Comments (63)

Ahern keeps Ian Paisley in the loop
As one keen observer of public opinion in the Republic told Slugger this morning, one of the most extraordinary results of the bank raid has been the shift in public sentiment away from northern Irish Nationalists towards Unionist opinion, possibly for the first time since partition. Indeed, it seems Bertie is taking steps to make sure the DUP is not left out of the loop on current developments.

Mick Fealty @ 11:12 AM | Comments (0)

SF to hold seat after unionists declare intent...
THE two main unionist parties are to contest the West Tyrone seat in the Westminster election, despite independent Assembly poll-topper Kieran Deeny's appeal for others to stand aside. The news means that the seat is almost certain to be held by Sinn Fein's Pat Doherty.

Belfast Gonzo @ 11:01 AM | Comments (53)

Ahern lifts the veil on Sinn Féin in Dail?
Interesting punch-up in the Dail last night that does not yet seem to have hit many of the papers:

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin led off with an attack on the Taoiseach’s motive’s for making the accusations in the first place, getting in a personal dig at Ahern first:

He has a neck trying to label any other political party with the criminality tag when one looks at the daily unfolding reality in respect of his political party.

Ó Caoláin went on to accuse him of acting out narrow party motive:

Everybody knows that we represent competing parties not only in respect of general elections but of all other electoral endeavours in this State. It has become ever more apparent that with the realisation that Sinn Féin presents a real and substantial challenge to the Taoiseach’s party at the polls in this State, he has moved increasingly to what I see as a situation where he seeks to misrepresent Sinn Féin intent and tries to re-draw the contemporary history of the achievement of a new political dispensation on this island, the end of armed hostilities, the peace process and all that has flowed and has yet to flow from it.

After some heckling from Defence Minister Willie O’Dea, the taoiseach finally got in his reply:

I understand why Deputy Ó Caoláin is looking around for an angle, which in this case is that the reasons are to do with party politics. If I had wished to fight his political party in a party political way, I certainly would not have done what I have been doing in recent years, such as doing everything possible to bring his party into the centre by ignoring all kinds of things and by trying to convince the DUP recently and the UUP for years of the benefits of working with Sinn Féin.

He went on to recount the political capital he’d spent in trying to convince others that Sinn Féin were serious about their side of the peace process bargain:

I have tried to convince them of the security of doing so. I have tried to convince Presidents Bush and Clinton and President Prodi and others to put money into Northern Ireland to help peace and reconciliation. If I had only been interested in a political fight, I would not have taken those actions. Before we began taking those actions, the Deputy’s party was a party with 2% support, but now it has a strong political mandate because people on all sides of this House, from the Labour Party to Fine Gael to Fianna Fáil to the Progressive Democrats to the Green Party, all worked to try to bring Sinn Féin in.

Then he went for the 'killer blow':

The Deputy must understand that things must be equal. I refer to the kind of tactics in which some of his friends engage. In recent days a man was taken to a lay-by, shot in both hands and suffered a broken jaw. The reason for this assault is not known but it was carried out by the Provisional IRA. An 18 year old received gunshot wounds in both hands in an incident in Seaford Street in east Belfast, responsibility for which lies with the Provisional IRA. A punishment attack was carried out on a 19 year old man. He was shot in both hands and it is believed the Provisional IRA was responsible. The other day, a 19 year old man was shot in both ankles in an alley in Serbia Street, Lower Falls, and it is believed the Provisional IRA was responsible, and blah, blah, blah.

Mick Fealty @ 10:50 AM | Comments (25)

Sinn Fein digging a bigger hole for itself...
Senator Maurice Hayes with a thoughtful piece directed at Sinn Fein, suggests the party needs to work out when to stop digging. He argues that their demand to have access to government and police intelligence from the taoiseach they seemed not to recognise is they, and not the Irish Government that has the credibility problem.

Mick Fealty @ 09:19 AM | Comments (10)

Gardaí told Irish government of suspicions
There's no doubt that at some point tangible evidence of the IRA's involvement will have to emerge into the public domain sooner or later to stand up the recent 'allegations'. But the heat seems to be well and truly off Hugh Orde, since the Gardaí confirmed that they informed the Irish government of their own suspicions of IRA involvement in the heist.

Mick Fealty @ 09:11 AM | Comments (0)

Adams Taoiseach could not 'stand up' bank claim
First the case for the defence. The Irish News covers Gerry Adams' claim that Bertie Ahern could not 'stand up the claim' that the IRA had conducted the Northern Bank heist, whilst Martin Ferris TD dismissed claims by Mary Harney that he was on (an nicreasingly overcrowded) IRA Army Council as a cynical attack.

Mick Fealty @ 09:04 AM | Comments (1)

January 26, 2005

Inevitable conservativism of blogging networks...
Fascinating article which is now nearly two years old, which asks is there a hierarchy in blogging: and if there is, is it fair? Noteable too for an early mention of Slugger on one of the charts.

Mick Fealty @ 09:20 PM | Comments (3)

Civil rights and the community
An interesting article from the States regarding parades and civil rights.

Ed Quillen of the Denver Post argues that "The First Amendment to the federal Constitution protects the right to free speech. It does not say anything about content. It says, "Congress shall make no law," not "Congress shall enjoy the power to prohibit hate speech, ban material deemed harmful to minors, suppress utterances that hurt people's feelings ... and this power may be delegated to college professors who can determine the allowable range of public expression."

We have the right to march in parades to celebrate Martin Luther King or Nathan Bedford Forrest, to honor Sitting Bull or George Armstrong Custer, and we have the right to stand on the sidelines and heckle the paraders. The Denver Police were protecting those rights when they arrested those who were blocking the parade."

Whilst in Scotland Sir John Orr has released his report on parades - which is seen as part of the Scottish Parliament`s clampdown on the large number of Orange parades in the west of Scotland. Several recent and upcoming Republican marches will also be effected. There is also the worry that these new regulations may stiffle democracy and protest from all sections of the community.

Aughavey @ 08:19 PM | Comments (7)

How rich are you?
I got this from my colleague Mark Weston. No matter how badly off you think you are in financial terms, you are likely to be wealthy in a global context.

Mick Fealty @ 05:15 PM | Comments (18)

Slugger's up for a 'Satin Pajama'

The fistful of Euros blog is running their weblog award competition, and they've got Slugger down as a finalist in their UK, single country and political categories. If you want to add your vote (continue scrolling for the others) - hurry along before it closes again. The excellent perfect.co.uk is way out in front in the UK section! Have a browse around - there's some good stuff in there.

Mick Fealty @ 03:40 PM | Comments (45)

School slated over handling of sex abuse
Cabin Hill School, the prep school for Campbell College is at the centre of a row over its handling of a sex abuse case: "It was six years later that the horrific level of abuse emerged after the boy who suffered worst underwent psychiatric treatment at a specialist adolescents unit, aged 17".

It begs the question, how many other individuals have had to endure this kind of situation? Northern Ireland is not good at producing reliable whistleblowers on any topic, never mind one as potentially cross cutting as this one!

For the last couple of months I've been aware of some fairly frightening rumours about widescale abuse reaching into the Northern Irish establishment. As far as I'm aware, there is no evidence in the public domain that any of these are true, but wonder if further revelations of this type may be on the way.

At the same time, can I just counsel people to think very carefully about any comments they may make on this story.

Mick Fealty @ 12:46 PM | Comments (1)

Democrats are no fools
An interesting editorial in Bertie's favourite paper, that's the Irish Times again, states that the 'old game' is already over - Day of the IRA shadow has ended - a little premature, perhaps, but it's their strongest line yet.

The editorial leaves litle doubt as to the Irish Government's message to Sinn Féin -

Tough talking took place at Government Buildings yesterday when Mr Gerry Adams was advised that the continuing existence and criminal activities of the Provisional IRA had become a fundamental obstacle to Sinn Féin's participation in government, North or South.

And echoes what the UUP and the SDLP said yesterday -

But republicans appeared to believe they could share power in the shadow of the IRA. The Northern Bank robbery - and the gross abuse of political trust it represented - changed all that. It acted as a wake-up call to democratic parties on this island and a seismic shift in attitudes has resulted.

There's a distinct chill in the air, according to the Irish Times, and it doesn't pull any punches when apportioning blame for that -

The political process in Northern Ireland is now in cold storage because of the criminal activities of the IRA. All the bluff and bluster by Sinn Féin will not change the fact that security forces on both sides of the Border are convinced, on the basis of extensive intelligence, that the IRA planned and executed the robbery. The topsy-turvey world of republicans, their sense of victimhood and their clever public relations have challenged that reality by way of Mr Adams's wounded assertion that Mr Ahern had failed to prove that he and Mr Martin McGuinness had known in advance about the robbery. Any IRA involvement in the raid was, he maintained, "a separate issue". Such bombast may serve to provide Mr Adams with a public fig leaf, but it emphasised the rift that had opened up between the Government and Sinn Féin.

And argues that continued IRA activity means Sinn Féin's reassurances have no credibility -

Last November, even as Sinn Féin provided reassurances that the IRA was preparing to disband and disarm, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported there was no sign of that happening and that the organisation was continuing to recruit and train members. Then came the breakdown in negotiations, ostensibly because of a photograph, and the Northern Bank robbery. Since then, there has been a resumption of IRA punishment shootings. The democratic family was being played for fools.

The suggestion of a two-year hiatus may have, previously, been intended as a spur to do a deal, but the editorial warns that it may become a reality

In present circumstances, there is no chance the Democratic Unionist Party will share power with Sinn Féin. And the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr David Trimble, advised the Government yesterday that the majority of unionists will not endorse Sinn Féin's participation in government for the foreseeable future. The dismal prospect, outlined by the Taoiseach last October, of a two-year hiatus in political progress in Northern Ireland is in danger of becoming a reality.

Despite that, the Governemnt line of 'no exclusion' is restated, but progress will be dependent on decisions that had previously been put to one side -

Political contact between Sinn Féin and the two governments will - and should - continue. Exclusion of republicans did not work in the past. But the emphasis, as the Taoiseach insisted last night, must be on making democratic progress within the political dispensation created by the Belfast Agreement. That will require decommissioning and support for policing.

The old game, the 'constructive ambiguity' of the past, is increasingly being recognised as a hurdle to that progress -

Ambiguity, a necessary component perhaps in the early days of the peace process, has been flung back in the face of all democrats on this island. The day of parallel tracks has passed. The Government, elected by the people, must have cast-iron assurances from now on that all paramilitary and criminal activity has ended for good.Then, and only then, will the Government be in a position to move forward.

pete baker @ 12:38 PM | Comments (16)

Planned protest against water charges
Rallies against the British government's reform of water services in Northern Ireland are to take place in Belfast and Derry on February 12, giving the people their chance to publicly voice their opposition to the planned reforms, which will make Joe Public pay for the decades of underinvestment in water infrastructure and will see the average household facing an annual charge of £115 (€166) from April 2006, rising to an average of £340 (€490) in 2008.

Tom Gillen from the Water Coalition, which represents trade unions, community and voluntary groups, said the people objected to an "unfair system".

Part of the water reforms will see the