There is no point in forcing the pace and no future in the failed ways of the past.

In the early sunshine of Good Friday morning, 10 April 1998, after perhaps an hour and a half’s sleep in an armchair, I went for a walk in the grounds of Stormont, where the rhododendrons were beginning to flower. The gloom surrounding the possibility of an inclusive agreement had lifted overnight, though, as the course of the day was to demonstrate, Sinn Fein difficulties gave way to other difficulties, when the Ulster Unionist Party realised that Sinn Fein were, after all, still on board. Tiredness dampened any euphoria I might have been tempted to feel at the overnight breakthrough between the UUP and SDLP on devolution, and, knowing all the difficulties still to be resolved, I knew to expect political trench warfare, as far as one could foresee. A car stopped beside me. It was a clerk at Stormont, who had once attended my father’s lectures on the Home Rule to Treaty period in Cambridge in the 1960s (subsequently published as The Unresolved Question). He invited me inside the building, where I had never previously been, giving me the opportunity to admire the magnificent parts of the interior. While conscious of nationalist reservations about the Assembly taking up residence in a place, which had such negative associations for them, I guessed correctly that they would soon overcome those reservations, and hold their fire for more important battles. The Irish peace process, which is now broadly concluded, consisted of three phases. The first, from 1987 to 1994, was about creating a path which would lead to paramilitary ceasefires. The second, from 1994 to 1998 was about opening negotiations leading to a comprehensive agreement, which would underpin and consolidate the ceasefires. The third and most prolonged phase, lasting nine years to 2007, has been about full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, as further fleshed out and adjusted in subsequent negotiations. These have seen the DUP play a leading part in the process through the St. Andrew’s Agreement. The implementation phase has been long drawn-out, and stalled sometimes for lengthy periods for reasons extraneous to the working of the negotiations. It could have ended in at least partial failure. From today’s vantage point, the Agreement has not only been largely fulfilled, but, in many areas, the commitments and expectations have, if anything, been exceeded. It faced immediate physical challenges from the far ends of the political spectrum. The ‘Real IRA’ bombing campaign was responsible for horrific casualties resulting from the Omagh bomb. The Drumcree protests of 1998 were also an attempt to bring down the Good Friday Agreement, the tragic deaths of the Quinn brothers having a sobering effect. Paramilitary violence and crime has since been reduced to a very low level. Continuing incidents created pressure for a total decommissioning of weapons as a condition of full government participation, and also led to a final declaration by the IRA of an end to the conflict with a completeness and finality that has probably surprised critics of the Agreement and the peace process. Policing reform was fleshed out in the Patten Report, and, despite some initial botching of the legislation, is being implemented with the backing and participation of virtually the whole community in the new PSNI. Oppressive security installations have been largely dismantled. Politically, the new dispensation is working, with the Executive and Assembly able to accommodate shifts in the relative strengths of parties on each side of the divide. If the DUP and Sinn Fein can work together, not a possibility seriously entertained back in 1998, then any combination consistent with the rules of the Agreement can be accommodated. The Alliance Party and the PUP have a difficult job of sustaining opposition to a coalition of the four bigger parties. North-South co-operation is working well, with Tourism Ireland probably the flagship of the implementation bodies. The single electricity market is additional to the Agreement. The Republic’s National Development Plan includes substantial funding for infrastructure in the North with a cross-border dimension, again not specifically envisaged in the Agreement, showing that co-operation does not have to be either static or formalistic. The two Finance Ministers presiding over this, Brian Cowen and Peter Robinson, both vigorous and self-confident, will assume the highest offices, North and South, within a few days of each other in early May. In a similar way, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern took office within a month of each other in 1997, and ended up working most productively together for ten years in a manner unique in the annals of territorial disputes. East-West co-operation, strong bilaterally and informally between the Republic and the UK, and of course constitutionally between Northern Ireland and Westminster, is also reflected in the British-Irish Council, and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, as well as in the British-Irish Interparliamentary Body which may soon be able to look forward to Unionist participation. It is also mutually beneficial, without being anyway constitutionally threatening, for Dublin to be able to have direct intergovernmental and consular relations with Edinburgh and Cardiff. Constitutional détente has been achieved with the help of the reformulation of Articles 2 and 3 and repeal of the Government of Ireland Act 1920. As Fianna Fáil leader-designate Brian Cowen said at his first press conference in that capacity, the two main traditions are embarked on a common journey without a predetermined ultimate destination. There is no point in anyone attempting to force the pace. The current situation, described by John Hume as an agreed Ireland, has a good deal of flexibility, and recognises the importance of different relationships. In the course of time, co-operation and understanding are likely to deepen, as old hatreds and barriers to co-operation continue to thaw. There is a basic enthusiasm and pride all-round in what has been achieved with the help at this stage of nearly every party, and no desire whatsoever to fall back into the failed ways of the past.

  Dr. Martin Mansergh, TD, former Special Adviser to the Taoiseach on Northern Ireland.