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