Hain urges parties to strive for devolution
Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain challenged unionists and republicans today to put Direct Rule Ministers out of work during 2006.
Mr Hain urged both sides to make a major new push to restore devolution during the next 12 months – or else planned elections to the shelved Stormont power-sharing regime will be pointless.
He said: “It is essential that there is real political movement in 2006, if the Assembly elections due to be held in 2007 are to have any meaning.”
Three years on from the collapse of the Stormont parliament over allegations of IRA espionage, Government ministers continue to run the various departments.
But a new report by ceasefire watchdogs on the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), due out in January, will be critical to hopes of delivering a breakthrough in the peace process.
Following the IRA’s pledge to end all violence and its decommissioning, Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern are waiting for a clean bill of health in the next dossier before making a big push to restore devolution.
Mr Ahern has made clear that if the IMC backs up the Provisionals claim, he will push for a swift return to power-sharing.
He said: “If the IMC state that that is credible, that it has happened, then it will allow Tony Blair and myself to try again to get the parties to enter into meaningful discussions that will hopefully lead to the restoration of the Northern Assembly and executive and the North-South bodies at some time during 2006, and the earlier the better.”
Mr Hain also emphasised the significance of reaching a settlement.
Those in charge should be chosen by the people of the North, he insisted.
“Every year that passes without a locally accountable Assembly working through a power-sharing Executive, is a year in which the people of Northern Ireland have to live with a democratic deficit that cannot be justified in the United Kingdom of today,” Mr Hain said.
“Big decisions had to be taken in 2005 on education, infrastructure, health and public administration.
“Those decisions had to be taken by Direct Rule Ministers working in the best interests of Northern Ireland and its people.
“There will be more big decisions to be taken in the future, not least on policing and criminal justice, and those decisions should be taken by politicians elected by those who will be most directly affected by those decisions. That is the point of devolution.”
And despite Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin being as far apart as ever, Mr Hain set out what both sides should do.
“Unionists need to know that republicans are serious about the commitments given in the Good Friday Agreement that they will work through exclusively lawful means,” he stressed.
“Republicans and nationalists need to know that unionists are serious about the commitments they have given that they will share power on a genuinely equitable basis.
“They have to persuade each other that a divided past can become a shared future.
“And in 2006, on the issues of unequivocal support for policing and genuine political engagement, inertia is not in anyone’s interest.”
Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness claimed the onus was on London and Dublin to produce a blueprint for a political settlement.
The Mid Ulster MP said: “Given the enormous events of this year with the IRA’s decision to formally end its armed campaign, there is an expectation among the people of Ireland, that the Irish and British Governments will bring forward a plan in early 2006 to see the restoration of power-sharing institutions in the north.
“Sinn Féin wants to see the political institutions restored.
“We want to be there with the other parties working in the interests of the people and being accountable and answerable to the electorate.
“It is time for both the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister to grasp the momentum created by the IRA ending its armed campaign and decommissioning its weapons during 2005.
“It’s time to lift the suspension and bring back the political institutions.”
