Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions could be restored within days after the British and Irish governments tabled a joint plan to revive the region’s devolved government. Three years after the assembly at Stormont collapsed, its two largest parties — the Democratic Unionist party and Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin — have agreed to re-enter the devolved government, ending a damaging stand-off and nine months of negotiations which have been marred by bitter rows over Brexit.
How does Northern Ireland’s devolved government work?
The power-sharing institutions were set up under the 1998 Good Friday peace pact to end three decades of sectarian violence that claimed more than 3,600 lives. These bodies include a 90-member parliamentary assembly and decision-making regional executive.
The devolved government is led by a first minister and deputy first minister with equal powers drawn from both sides of the region’s historical divide — mainly Protestant unionists, who want to preserve Northern Ireland’s place in the UK and mainly Catholic nationalists, who want it to join the Irish Republic.
To ensure peace could be bedded down permanently, power-sharing was designed to foster political co-operation between unionists and nationalists, with the support of the British and Irish governments.
The institutions were slow to take hold, with frequent crises holding back progress, but the pact ultimately led to a decade of DUP-Sinn Féin power-sharing.
The first leaders of the DUP-Sinn Féin administration were the late Ian Paisley, a hardline Protestant preacher, and the late Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader. Their work together was seen as a sign of reconciliation in a region long blighted by conflict.
Why did power-sharing fall apart?
The administration collapsed in January 2017 when Sinn Féin walked out of government over a public spending scandal linked to a botched green energy project.
Because of its lack of cost controls, the scheme could yet cost the region’s taxpayers £490m. Arlene Foster, DUP leader and former first minister, is facing a potentially critical report on her role in the affair when the findings of an inquiry led by Patrick Coghlin, a retired court of appeal judge, is made public in late February.
Rows over the green energy debacle were made worse by Brexit tensions in a region that voted by 56-44 per cent to remain in the EU. The DUP supports Brexit but Sinn Féin opposes it.
The schism intensified when the DUP signed a 2017 deal to support Theresa May’s minority Conservative government in Westminster, aggravating rows over the future of the border between Northern Ireland and the republic. The DUP’s rejection of Mrs May’s Brexit treaty and its “backstop” provisions to maintain an open border added to tension with Sinn Féin that made a resumption of power-sharing impossible.
To the DUP’s horror, Boris Johnson, her successor as Tory prime minister, backed a revised Brexit deal in October which places a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea. Unionists see that as a threat to close economic ties with the rest of the UK.
Mr Johnson’s emphatic election victory last month served to deprive the DUP of its influence in Downing Street.
The election was also significant for both the DUP and Sinn Féin as each suffered a declining share of the regional vote. This spurred the latest round of talks which began just before Christmas. And with an upcoming election in Ireland Sinn Féin faced a further source of pressure to settle a Stormont deal.
The impact on Northern Ireland
The crisis undermined the Good Friday pact, raising questions over the durability of institutions that were supposed to endure for generations and reinforce the foundations of peace. The lack of government left the region under the control of civil servants with no mandate to change policy and drew it very close to direct rule from London.
The stand-off also left Northern Ireland without a formal voice in the Brexit negotiations, a critical issue for the region given the potential for economic disruption from the UK leaving the EU and the high sensitivity over the border.
There were other consequences, most notably in Northern Ireland’s crisis-ridden health service, which is now at the centre of public disquiet about the political stand-off. Nurses in the region, who are paid the least in the UK, went on strike for the first time in 103 years in December in a pay dispute that cannot be settled without a functioning Stormont administration.
The number on hospital waiting lists for more than a year is close to 109,000, the UK’s biggest. Any incoming government will need to make big interventions to restore order in the service.
What’s in the deal?
The proposed deal includes the promise of a “significant” cash injection from London for health and also infrastructure, which is contingent on power-sharing being revived. Some participants in the talks believe the UK government will provide £1.5bn-£2bn, but the final figure won’t be set out until any deal is over the line. Dublin has promised €110m over three years for motorway and rail projects with a cross-border dimension.
The UK government also promised new laws to “guarantee unfettered access” for business in Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK after Brexit. The move is supposed to ease business anxiety about checks on shipments from Great Britain to Northern Ireland that would follow any UK moves to diverge from EU trade rules in any future agreement with the bloc. It could help Mrs Foster sell the deal to her supporters but it may also limit Mr Johnson’s room for manoeuvre in trade talks.
The parties were long divided over Sinn Féin clamour for a new standalone law to recognise the Irish language, which the DUP rejected. The new deal would settle the matter by changing existing laws to establish a commissioner to protect and enhance the Irish language. Another new commissioner would protect the Ulster Scots language and British traditions in the region.
Additional reporting by Laura Hughes and Sarah Neville
