Account For The Failure Of Both The Power Sharing Executive And The Northern Ireland Assembly Essay, Research Paper

Account for the failure of both the Power Sharing Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly

Seminar No.5

To account for such a failure in the power-sharing executive it is

necessary for one to look at the structure and the organisation of the

Assemblies as well as assessing its aims and directives as well as to examine

the time scale to which this has taken place. My intention is to examine from

the mid-seventies to the present day and all the questions that these many

and various initiatives have raised. The power-sharing

executive was the first and last examples of home rule since the collapse of

Stormont.

During this last period the establishment of Stormont lasted from 1973 to

1974. The aim of the British Government was to return the province to an

eventual devolution. The issue of direct rule was to be only a temporary

measure whilst the relevant sides talked it out at the negotiating table looking

for a form of political settlement. Essentially the main elements that both

parties were looking for was to guarantee that the province remained a part of

the United Kingdom as long as the majority deem that wish . Proportional

Representation was held in order to elect the new seventy-eight Northern

Irish Assembly. The two most contentious issue of all the issues of were the

issue of institutionalised power sharing and that of the establishment of the

Council of Ireland, which had, a direct input into the system of governance as

well as a probable oversight into linking the whole system into the Irish

political system, therefore adding an Irish dimension to the proceedings in

order to placate republican feelings and sentiment.

The executive failed on a series of levels due to the various

claimed inconsistency by both sides. But one must really accredit claim to

the Unionists for mobilising the populace with the help of the paramilitaries in

organising strikes and protest marches in order to discredit the Republican

gains in the region. Unionist felt that their position was somewhat a breach of

trust from the then current labour government. Unionist were strongly

opposed to power sharing or any kind of Home Rule since the Unionists were

so used to having their own way under the previous Stormont tenures with

various Unionist majorities that they saw as keeping the Republicans in

some form of check thus providing them with an opposition that would be of

no trouble to quell. Another aspect that would provide the Unionist

ammunition to carry on their concurrent course was that of the British

Government to bring about a halt to the various strikes and civil disturbances

caused by the Loyalists and the Protestant populous. As an immediate rise

to the outrage of this proposed form of government Unionist Politicians

requested mobilisation of their own religious sectors to rise up against the

notion of a power-sharing executive and thus conduct a series of strikes to

bolster their argument. This was also augmented by the Loyalist

Paramilitary Organisations such as the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster

Defence Association. These organisations set about intimidating individuals

and their families in order to attend the current strikes and civil strife that was

happening during that period of time. The strikes were lead by the mainly

Protestant ship builders at the Harland and Woolf ship yard in the East of

Belfast this was to set the course for the duration of the unrest in the

province, following the lead of the ship builders the electricity workers striked

as well plunging the region into a virtual blackout for a number of days. This

was followed up by the use of paramilitary force to drive out police officers

and attack British soldiers, inciting riots and barricading streets to prevent

access to the law enforcement authorities, literally establishing no go zones

to these various agencies. As well as disrupting various essential services

such as the use of the emergency services and organisations of a similar

nature. Essentially the power of the majority even exceeded the will of its

masters in Westminster, from this one could assume that power in Ulster was

firmly with the Unionist politicians and paramilitaries. This would appear to

be the case due to the simple fact that the British government did not have

the will or power to put the strikes down, the Army feared a massive backlash

if it was seen to attempt to quell the strikes thus putting both them and the

government in an untenable situation which would almost certainly lead to

almost certain further deterioration to an already fragile state of affairs. The

main fear allied to nearly all politicians on the main land was the fear of all

out civil war.

As a result republican politicians reneged on their elected seats

in the Northern Irish Assembly thus putting a stop to the prospect of a

Northern Irish Assembly with a shared power base. It is very useful to look

and assess the various events and processes but the underlying factors can

provide answers that could explain the various events that could have been

prevented if these were examined more closely. One is referring to examples

such as social and class cleavages that are blatantly apparent in a society

such as Ulster and the lack of input provided by both parties on the ground to

resolve the crisis and attain some form of resolution to the perceived

problems. In order to ascertain the problems in Ulster a direct correlation can

be drawn up from the inequality or lack of homogenous society that is more

then apparent in province like Northern Ireland. Due to the history and the

discriminations imposed on the Catholic population of the mainly Protestant

north it is hardly suprising that a large amount of Catholics feel animosity to

their Protestant neighbours.

1975-76: A Constitutional Convention was convened to enable elected

representatives from Northern Ireland to propose their own solution. The

majority unionist parties proposed a return to majority rule, modified by a

committee system with some minority rights inbuilt. It was rejected by both the

British and the minority SDLP.

1977-78 and 1980: Two attempts to set up devolved institutions were initiated

by two Northern Ireland secretaries of state, Roy Mason and Humphrey

Atkins. Neither got to first base. They were opposed, for different reasons, by

the SDLP and the UUP, but both simply petered out. As a measure of the

cultural gap between the two sides, two bars were set up in Stormont during

the Atkins talks of 1980, one serving only non-alcoholic beverages. Students

of national stereotyping may guess which bar was designed for which political

parties.

1982-84: Rolling Devolution, introduced by James Prior, was perhaps the

most ingenious proposal, again involving an elected assembly and a

committee system. This envisaged a gradual return to power by elected

representatives, but only if the proposed powers had ‘Widespread

acceptance’, defined as 70 per cent agreement. In other words, the amount of

power allowed to local political parties depended on their ability to agree, and

would roll along at the speed of progress determined by them. It was

boycotted by the SDLP because it did not guarantee power sharing.

1991-92: The Brooke-Mayhew initiatives sought to introduce phased talks,

involving the Northern Irish parties first and the Dublin government at a later

stage. This initiative followed the introduction of the Anglo-lrish Agreement in

1985, an agreement signed by the governments of the United Kingdom and

the Irish Republic, but which did not involve local politicians and has been

bitterly opposed by unionists. A major survey in 1990 confirmed that, for

Protestants, the Anglo-lrish Agreement is still perceived to be the biggest

single obstacle to peace.

Prior to 1993 Sinn F?in was excluded from all major political talks, mainly

because unionist parties refused to talk with terrorists. In 1988 and 1993,

however, those whom they regarded as the leaders of the SDLP and Sinn

F?in held two series of bilateral talks. The consequences remain to be seen.

1993: The Downing Street Declaration, jointly announced by the Prime

Minister of the United Kingdom, John Major, and the Irish Taoiseach, Albert

Reynolds, introduced for the first time the possibility of Sinn F?in becoming

involved in talks. The condition was an ending of violence for at least three

months. In return, the Irish government accepted that any constitutional

change in the status of Northern Ireland required the support of a majority

within Northern Ireland. At the time of writing, three months after the

Declaration, the unionist parties were divided on the initiative and Sinn F?in

was still considering it. The Declaration offered, for the first time, the

possibility of addressing the constitutional and security problems together as

part of a peace package.

In summary, then, if a broader definition of conflict management or resolution

is accepted, Northern Ireland has experience of a wide variety of approaches:

 Majority domination, from 1921 to 1972;

 Integration, for a three-month period in 1974 when a power-sharing executive was formed and failed;

 Administrative reforms, since 1969, when legislative changes covering housing, employment, social and educational reforms were introduced, with varying results;

 ‘Holding the fort’ with a standing army, since 1969;

 Political talks, as detailed above;

 Superordinate agreement between the two main governments, as with the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985.

Northern Ireland’s Troubles

Marie-Therese Fay

Pluto Press 1999

The Origins of the Present Troubles in Northern Ireland

Caroline Kennedy-Pipe

Longman 1997

Stormont in Crisis

Ken Bloomfield

Blackstaff Press Ltd 1993

Unionist Politics and the Politics of Unionism Since the Anglo-Irish Agreement

Feargal Cochrane

Cork University Press 1997

The Anglo-Irish Agreement

Arwel Ellis Owen

University of Wales Press 1994