OPINION:A Sinn Féin-DUP power struggle at the heart of the Northern Executive is threatening the stability of the fledgling Stormont administration writes Gerry Moriarty
IT'S HARD TO disagree with the comment from Alliance's Naomi Long that Friday's spat between Peter Robinson and Sinn Féin minister Conor Murphy about "Northern Ireland/the North of Ireland" and "Derry/Londonderry" was breathtaking in its pettiness.
Yet, the terminological dispute is symptomatic of a deeper-rooted problem between Sinn Féin and the DUP that while not yet having risen to the category of crisis could degenerate into something more serious if Gerry Adams and Peter Robinson don't get into talking mode.
The long-standing conundrum about how to describe the "Occupied Six" or "This Grand Wee Country" came up in May last year when regional development minister Mr Murphy advised his officials to use designations dear to the hearts of republicans rather than unionists when referring to the North or Northern Ireland.
That time the DUP's standup man Sammy Wilson batted the row away through comedy. But there's not much humour about in Northern political circles at the moment. After some 150 alterations were made to a planning paper entitled Shaping The Future (some irony there!) First Minister Mr Robinson threatened his Executive colleague with legal action.
It's all gone rather sour.
The Robinson/Murphy row is indeed petty but it's also indicative of a deeper malaise at the heart of the still fledgling Stormont powersharing administration.
Having taken 40 years or 80 years or 800 years - depending on your historic timeframe - to achieve the May 2007 historic deal between the Rev Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams it would seem crazy and reckless in the extreme if it were all to unravel over what appear eminently resolvable difficulties between the two parties.
Sinn Féin has blocked meetings of the Executive since mid-June and if the Executive doesn't meet on September 18th Peter Robinson is threatening "serious consequences".
That was after Sinn Féin's leader in the Dáil Caoimhghin Ó Caoláin upped the ante by warning that Sinn Féin ministers would walk out of the Executive if policing and justice was not devolved. That's an ultimatum and as every student of Northern politics understands ultimatums more often than not are counterproductive.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan described the dispute as "ludicrous" rather than "ominous", meaning that the two parties will grandstand for a while and then patch up their differences, because it is in their self-interest to so do.
Odds are Mr Durkan is correct in his analysis but nothing can be taken for granted and it's worth exploring why the DUP and Sinn Féin appear in danger of talking themselves into an unnecessary crisis.
The central issues are well ventilated at this stage. Sinn Féin wants policing and justice powers transferred to the Northern Executive; it wants an Irish language act; it wants a stadium and a conflict transformation centre at the old Maze prison site; it wants its education minister Caitríona Ruane to dictate what should replace the Eleven Plus primary to secondary school transfer test. There are other issues but these are the main matters.
The DUP is prepared to see policing and justice devolved but only when it feels the time is right. The DUP says there will be no Irish language act because that proposal was "binned" by the DUP. Peter Robinson contends a stadium at the Maze would be a bit of a "Bertiebowl" in that it would be too costly. Others in the DUP reject the project because they see the conflict transformation centre as a shrine to the republican hunger strikers. The DUP oppose Ms Ruane at every turn because their politicians argue her proposals would destroy an educational system that is the best in the UK.
The DUP says it did not sign up to any of these issues at St Andrews in the autumn of 2006. The letter of the law would appear to be with the DUP here: the St Andrews Agreement was a deal between the British and Irish governments, albeit it was the basis for the Rev Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams getting it together in March last year.
Sinn Féin politicians respond that both the letter and the spirit of St Andrews are with them. They signed-up to St Andrews and regardless of the DUP's position that was what Sinn Féin was promised for supporting the police, ensuring the IRA was out of the equation, and sharing power with the DUP: they delivered and if the DUP won't reciprocate then it's a matter for governments to ensure promises are honoured.
Wisely, at the moment, the governments are trying to keep in the background and hope that the DUP and Sinn Féin can find a way through the blockage. On the face of it these matters appear eminently surmountable.
For instance the DUP and Sinn Féin already have agreed that neither party will take the sensitive justice and policing ministry, leaving the portfolio potentially open to Alliance, the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist Party, although Alliance leader David Ford says his party doesn't want the post. This sensibly headed off disagreement because either Sinn Féin or the DUP, or both parties, running a department of justice at this early stage of the Executive was bound to cause tensions.
If there isn't a specific Irish language act, there could be an alternative Irish language "strategy". The bottom line is to promote the language. People of a certain age realise that legislation doesn't mean a language will flourish, just as compulsory Irish didn't work in the South. The cost factor does seem to be a real issue in these straitened times relating to the Maze but there's current talk of a compromise where the stadium would be abandoned but the centre established, and the GAA, soccer and rugby supported in other ways. Education is proving very tricky but again with politics played as the art of the possible a solution could be found.
The central point here is that there are plenty of ideas out there and room for compromise if Gerry Adams and Peter Robinson are willing to compromise.
The DUP is also flagging up the continued existence of the IRA army council as a block to political confidence. Today the Independent Monitoring Commission is due to present the British and Irish governments with a report likely to say that the army council has a very limited function and hardly poses a threat. That may not totally satisfy the DUP but the IMC's report at least could park the issue.
Some conspiracy theorists suspect that Machiavellian games are afoot behind all the squabbling. There is an argument that Sinn Féin walking away from the Executive would suit Mr Robinson because it would bolster the prospects of a voluntary coalition of the DUP, the SDLP and the UUP, with Sinn Féin excluded. Another theory is the fall of the Assembly would prove Sinn Féin's central point that the North or Northern Ireland is a "failed statelet", thus improving the prospects of a united Ireland by 2016.
Such thinking seems rather fanciful. Common sense says that it is in the interests of the DUP and Sinn Féin that devolution should work. If it doesn't those who will benefit will be republican dissidents, anxious to fill the political vacuum with violence, and MEP Jim Allister seeking to undermine the DUP. In terms of the blame game the public surely would have little sympathy for either party if Stormont collapsed.
What is at the heart of the standoff, as far as Sinn Féin is concerned, is a power struggle between the DUP and Sinn Féin, and primarily in the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister. In the happy days of Paisley/McGuinness the Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister was content to ignore or tolerate the times Dr Paisley referred to him as "The Deputy". But not now with Mr Robinson as First Minister.
Under the Belfast Agreement theirs is an equal office. Peter Robinson can't act without the say-so of Martin McGuinness and vice versa. That's why there hasn't been an Executive meeting since the summer - Mr McGuinness hasn't allowed one.
According to senior Sinn Féin figures the current standoff is about Sinn Féin instructing the DUP that the days of "majoritarian rule" are long over. Mr Adams made a similar point in a speech in Derry in mid-August, "The message to unionism is clear - if unionists want to exercise power; if they want an Assembly, and an Executive, taking meaningful decisions, then there is a price to be paid - and that price is sharing power with republicans in a partnership government of equals." Senior DUP people challenge this analysis. "That is just Sinn Féin spin and propaganda," said a senior source. "We are not in government to deliver a Sinn Féin shopping list," he added.
As of the moment relations between Sinn Féin and the DUP are very tetchy. What they have done is agreed to hold more talks this week. Both parties say that with the political will the outstanding matters can be sorted, and both Sinn Féin and the DUP insist they have that will. The next couple of weeks will tell whether the two parties can start working with each other, as opposed to against each other. Robinson, McGuinness and Adams have a lot to do and fences to mend to get the Executive upright again."DUP and Sinn Féin appear in danger of talking themselves into an unnecessary crisis