Northern Ireland’s political parties have agreed to a deal that will lead to the restoration of the power-sharing government in the region following its collapse three years ago.
On Friday evening, Sinn Féin confirmed it would back a deal promoted by the British and Irish governments which included plans to put Gaelic on a par with English, its leader, Mary Lou McDonald, announced.
She said: “We now have the basis to restore power sharing, and we’re up for that.”
She confirmed that the party would nominate ministers for a new power-sharing executive and said Irish language activists should “take heart” over the provisions for Gaelic contained in the new deal.
She added that Sinn Féin was “committed” to Irish reunification efforts and to making sure people across the north-south divide enjoyed the same rights.
East Antrim Democratic Unionist MP Sammy Wilson also signalled on Friday night that the DUP is ready to sign up to the agreement.
Wilson said :“I have huge reservations about the deal. [DUP leader] Arlene Foster herself said there is things in the deal that we would prefer not to be there but any deal is always going to be a compromise and I suppose at the end of the day is can we get back to stable government in NI and can we have local ministers dealing with the kinds of pressing problems I was having to address on behalf of constituents today?
“The party has negotiated a deal in good faith with the government and other parties. There is not everything in that deal that I like, there is some things that I dislike very, very strongly in the deal but we have to get devolved government up and running in NI and I think that what we don’t like we will live with.”
The party is to meet on Friday evening to formally back the deal.
There is even a suggestion that a newly reconstituted Northern Ireland Assembly may hold a special session this Saturday at Stormont to elect a parliamentary speaker and allow the five main parties to nominate ministers. McDonald however did not comment on the timing of any new assembly at her press conference.
The DUP and Sinn Féin were threatened with fresh assembly elections if they did not agree a deal by Monday.
With both suffering significant losses in the UK general election, that was not an attractive prospect, particularly as the centrist Alliance party doubled its share of the vote on 12 December.
The public had also lost patience with politicians in the backdrop of one of the worst health crises in the region, with the first Royal College-backed nursing strike in a century. McDonald said: “The first action we believe of the incoming executive must be to deliver pay parity to health workers.”
It is understood that the DUP will get three ministries and that one will be headed up by the MEP Diane Dodds, possibly education. Sinn Féin will run two while the SDLP, cross-community Alliance party and the Ulster Unionists will each control one ministry.
At the core of the deal proposed by the British and Irish governments is the creation of two new “language commissioners” as part of a cultural plan to put Gaelic on an equal par to English while protecting Ulster British culture.
Earlier on Friday, the DUP and Sinn Fein appeared to have accepted the “New Decade, New Approach” paper put forward by the Northern Ireland secretary, Julian Smith, and the Irish deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney.
Sinn Féin’s ruling executive met around lunchtime to debate the details of the agreement with some concerns over exactly what kind of “veto powers” a unionist first minister might exercise over the commissioners who would have some legal powers to recommend or enforce policies such as dual language street signs but it appears these were addressed.
Under the deal, the two most important politicians in a new devolved government – the first and deputy first ministers – would have some role in shaping the remit of the commissioners.
Responding to the government blueprint, the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, said: “On balance, we believe there is a basis upon which the [Northern Ireland] Assembly and executive can be re-established in a fair and balanced way.”
