Behind the smiles, the gritting of teeth

In judging the performance of devolution over the last decade one has to recall that the first phase was more akin to an event than a process. Suspended on four occasions, the last in October 2002, only intermittently were there four wheels on the devolved wagon.

In that fraught situation, the DUP enjoyed the best of all possible worlds. Taking the two ministerial seats to which it was entitled, it boycotted all meetings of both the Executive and the North-South Ministerial Council, enabling it to act as both a governing and an opposition party simultaneously. Indeed, Peter Robinson celebrated the party’s ‘ministers in opposition’ stance, much to the annoyance of the three other governing parties. Any hope that the UUP-SDLP axis would, in David Trimble’s words, form ‘a coalition within a coalition’ to steady the ship foundered in the face of growing electoral support for their respective ethnic rivals, the DUP and Sinn Fein, and a deteriorating and ultimately irretrievable relationship between the UUP leader and both Seamus Mallon and Mark Durkan, the two Deputy First Ministers. Nevertheless, the first Executive did manage to make something of a policy difference to the lives of the ordinary people of Northern Ireland. In a context of public spending plenty, it significantly increased expenditure on health and education — including improvements to the system of student finance and funding of free nursing care, though not personal, for the elderly. It introduced a Commissioner for Children and Young People, initiated regional strategies for public health, regional development, agriculture and transport. It also instituted free travel on public transport for OAPs. One might imagine this to be a cause of collective celebration: far from it. Credit for the scheme was claimed both by the DUP and by the three other Executive parties, leading to an unseemly squabble over policy paternity, a row which epitomised the state of intra-Executive relations as the first devolved period ran into the sand. Moreover, there was no provision for collective responsibility in the 1998 Agreement which enabled ministers to go on solo policy runs if they wished. some took advantage of this ommission: notably the then Education Minister Martin McGuinness, who summarily announced the ending of the 11+ on the eve of the final suspension. His decision continues to reverberate through the current Executive without any agreed resolution in sight. Besides the question of the future of 11+ there is other, potentially eruptive, unfinished business to resolve as the new Executive nears its first anniversary, including the devolution of policing and criminal justice which is scheduled to occur in May 2008, a year after the St Andrews Agreement. That target date will be missed and the matter pushed back until at least the autumn because the DUP does not believe that the conditions are right for the planned transfer given the continuing existence of the IRA’s ‘army council’. In addition, there is the vexed issue of the new sports stadium and ‘Conflict Transformation Centre’ at the site of the former ‘H-blocks’ which many in the DUP oppose, sensing that the proposed centre would become ‘a shrine to the IRA’. Besides that political football, there are the equally troublesome matters of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland and an Irish Language Act, the last already booted into the long grass by the DUP’s culture minister, Edwin Poots and provoking the ire of Sinn Fein in the process. The period between October 2002 and the resumption of devolution in May 2007 left a legacy of unpopular direct rule decisions—many the handiwork of the unlamented Peter Hain, including the introduction of water charges. The all-party opposition to the ‘tap tax’, together with a united campaign to secure some sort of ‘peace dividend’ including the reduction of corporation tax to the Irish level, also saw the party leaders tripping over one another to press the case for a generous economic settlement and fiscal reform. In particular, the corporation tax campaign was a Quixotic enterprise that elevated windmill-tilting to a fine art: the idea that the Scottish duo in Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street would vary fiscal policy to the disadvantage of Great Britain in order to reward Northern Ireland for coming, belatedly, to its political senses was a massive exercise in collective self-delusion. However ill-advised, what was compelling was the readiness of the four major parties to join forces to push the argument. It betokened a very different atmosphere than that which enveloped the first period of devolution. While there were, and are, post-St Andrews ‘refuseniks’ in both the unionist and republican ranks, each capable of causing difficulties for their respective communal leaders, the new Executive has looked much more durable from the first. Unlike in 1999 when the ministers were parachuted in to their respective departments via the d’Hondt process (for which read the pulling of political straws), in 2007 the allocation of portfolios to the four Executive parties was freely negotiated and agreed, as were the nominations to chairs and deputy chairs of the Assembly’s committees. This created a more stable platform for the renewal of devolution Stability has been further increased by the DUP’s full engament in all of the devolved institutions — unlike between 1999-2002 when it boycotted the Executive and the North-South Ministerial Council. The DUP’s participation has been crucial: without its preparedness to assume a full role in the design and outworking of the St Andrews Agreement, Northern Ireland would now be subject to the ‘joint stewardship’ of London and Dublin — or, as one senior NIO official put it privately, ‘a greener form of direct rule’. In that sense, the choice facing Ian Paisley at St Andrews was not unlike that which faced David Trimble in 1998: join a power sharing Executive or face a much more uncertain future, one that would involve an enhanced, if unstated, role for the Irish government. For both Trimble and Paisley, agreeing to participate in an inclusive administration was in effect driven less by the politics of accommodation and much more by the politics of constraint. Sinn Fein for its part needed a successful and stable administration in Northern Ireland in order to sustain and develop its unification project, even more so in the wake of the 2007 Irish general election when it lost significant electoral ground. And so, with both mixed feelings and motives, devolution was relaunched and we quickly grew accustomed to the sight of Messrs Paisley and McGuinness, dubbed ‘the chuckle brothers’, standing together, their faces wreathed in smiles. Indeed, rather like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, over the past twelve months the public had to begin believing in six impossible things before breakfast as the devolution project unfolded. Now, however — with the looming departure of First Minister Ian Paisley — we are on the verge of a new phase led by Messrs Robinson and McGuinness who are likely to resemble the Brothers Grimm rather than the chucklesome duo we came to know. What then does the immediate future hold? Thus far, the Executive has agreed a budget and a programme for government in which the need for economic growth bulks large and, following a protracted set of negotiations, agreement has been struck over the reform of local government. In short, there are reasons to be cheerful. And yet, there are also reasons to be cheerless. There are inherent strains within the Executive and not just in relation to the considerable amount of unfinished business that looms over it. Within the DUP there are many who wish to see provision made in the governing legislation for enabling a voluntary rather than a forced coalition to emerge: a position utterly at odds with both the Good Friday and the St Andrews Agreements and, therefore, with the UK and Irish governments, not to mention Sinn Fein and the SDLP. In addition, the UUP and the SDLP continue to flirt with the idea of relinquishing their ministerial seats and going into opposition: a counsel of frustration on their parts given that the Executive now turns on the DUP/SF axis. Yet, despite such imminent stresses, thus far the Executive has maintained its equilibrium even when confronted by the gruesome murder of Paul Quinn, allegedly by IRA thugs. A short while ago such allegations would have led to uproar, with the DUP lending its voice to, if not leading, the chorus of vituperation. Now, though, the party appears content to allow police inquiries, on both sides of the border, to take their course. Meanwhile, the loveless political cohabitation of the DUP and Sinn Fein will continue, notwithstanding the smiles of Messrs Paisley and McGuinness. But, should the Quinn investigations yield conclusive evidence of IRA involvement, then the future looks a lot less certain. And the nascent First Minister, the pragmatic Peter Robinson, though a key architect of the DUP’s strategy, not least at St Andrews, may have no choice other than to bring the power-sharing house down. Happy anniversary.

  Rick Wilford is Professor of Politics at Queen’s University and co-coordinator of the ‘Monitoring Devolution’ programme for Northern Ireland, in partnership with The Constitution Unit, University College London.