Northern Ireland: powersharing dispute threatens to freeze peace process

The latest set of problems follows in the wake of unrelated scandals that themselves threatened to undermine the peace process.

First, Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Féin, was lambasted for not doing enough to protect children when he was informed of allegations of child abuse and rape against his brother Liam. Weeks later, unionism seemed ready to tear itself apart when it was revealed that Iris Robinson, an assembly member and member of the British parliament as well as wife of Northern Ireland's first minister, Peter Robinson, had an extramarital affair with a young man in his late teens and secured state funding for his business venture.

Peter Robinson managed to defuse the situation by temporarily standing down from the office of first minister while Iris Robinson announced her resignation from all elected offices. Mr. Adams, meanwhile, is also weathering the storm, though his strategy has been to hunker down and wait.

Both scandals had the potential to derail the powersharing assembly, and form the backdrop to a real political dispute that could now do just that.

Dawn Purvis, an assembly member for the Progressive Unionist Party, a small group that grew out of the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force, one of the paramilitary protagonists in the Northern Ireland conflict, says the larger parties are feeding sectarianism.

"This is conflict transformation so it's not a normal politics. That sours relationships and blocks the process – we have to end sectarianism, otherwise the faultine will always be there," she told The Christian Science Monitor this morning.

Ms Purvis says the parties must get an agreement so that normal politics can take root in the divided society.

"These continuous rounds of negotiations feed the extremists on both sides, they make them relevant when they're not – they should be irrelevant to the new society we hope to build."

Caragh O'Donnell, who works in arts administration in Belfast, says the endless talks are a distraction from important real economic issues.

"Far too much time money and energy is being wasted on a political process that’s increasingly an embarrassment to us all. It’s exasperating that our MLAs [members of the legislative assembly] can’t even have talks without the intervention of real politicians, while pressing issues like jobs are put aside.

"If they can’t 'play nice,' then they deserve to have government shut down and they should get their pay docked for not doing their jobs while they’re at it," she says.

The Northern Ireland Assembly is no stranger to crises. Since its official inauguration on 2 December 1999 there have been four suspensions, the longest lasting from October 2002 until May 2007. It also follows two other failed attempts at powersharing, first in 1973 and then in 1982.

Public trust low

This time, things may be more serious, as fewer and fewer people on the streets of Northern Ireland trust the Assembly.

The British and Irish governments have yet to reveal the details of their plan to impose a settlement on the disagreeing parties. One possibility open to them is joint authority. This is considered the 'nuclear option' and would see the assembly scrapped and Northern Ireland's sovereignty – and governance – shared by London and Dublin.

By mid-evening local time, the governments had still failed to outline their plan which was due to be published this afternoon.

Political commentator Mick Fealty, who edits the award-winning political blog Slugger O'Toole, says the most likely plan is simply to force policing and justice on the Assembly, but with concessions to both sides.

"The two governments are saying it's 80 percent there," he said. "The main thing we know [about the governments' plan] is that it includes a [mandatory] timeframe for the devolution of policing and justice," he says.

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