Opinion

Jim Gibney: Republicans will be asking if the north is ungovernable

Former Deputy First Minster Martin McGuiness speaking to the media at Stormont Buildings, during appointment of Michelle O'Neill as Sinn Féin's Stormont leader
Former Deputy First Minster Martin McGuiness speaking to the media at Stormont Buildings, during appointment of Michelle O'Neill as Sinn Féin's Stormont leader Former Deputy First Minster Martin McGuiness speaking to the media at Stormont Buildings, during appointment of Michelle O'Neill as Sinn Féin's Stormont leader

Martin McGuinness’s resignation interview on television in January of this year is one of the most powerful, emotional and memorable pieces of television history to come out of the much televised conflict in the last fifty years.

I watched the interview again last week following the end of the negotiations at the assembly.

It was more difficult to watch then than it was back in January because, although shocked, then we still had hope that Martin would recover. But that was not to be.

In a weak and faltering voice, matched only by his haunting appearance, Martin spoke, not just for republicans but for all who seek to live in a rights-based, inclusive and democratic society in the north as part of an all-island political entity.

His comments set the moral and political framework for the type of society the north’s politicians must commit to before its institutions of government can be restored.

The bench-mark, if you like, against which certainly republicans and probably many others will judge the outcome of any negotiations, now or in the future, is contained in Martin’s words.

Martin’s comments are worth recalling. He said that as deputy first minister he had engaged with the DUP and reached out to unionists for ten years on the basis of “equality, respect and reconciliation”, which was met by “arrogance” and indifference from the DUP.

He said that “equality and respect for everyone is what the process has to be about”, that his resignation had “called a halt to DUP arrogance” in government and that the DUP were living in a “fools paradise” if they thought they could return to ministerial office without the “critical issues” being resolved.

And in this last interview before his illness overwhelmed him he left behind the most telling of all comments which is now a watchword for republicans: “There will be no return to the status quo”.

And there has been no return to the status quo and the message out of last week’s failed talks is there will not be a return to the status quo.

Why? Because the status quo gave us the heating scandal which could cost the public purse £900 million, almost a billion pounds, and the DUP’s fingerprints are all over it. Yet no one has been held to account for this financial scandal for which the taxpayer has to pay.

Hopefully, the current public inquiry will shed light precisely on what DUP ministers knew about the abuse of public money.

The status quo gave us a society based on the DUP’s world view where relatives of those who died in the conflict are denied the truth, where Irish language speakers, the LGBT community, human rights advocates and those seeking human rights are denied their rights.

And all of this is wrapped up in a suffocating blanket of economic austerity where public services and welfare provisions in the north are denied funding by a Tory government in London supported by the DUP.

The hypocrisy of the DUP supporting a Tory government which supports and funds the Gaelic language in Scotland and Wales; which supports marriage equality in Britain and LGBT rights, has an array of human rights legislating including access to coroner’s courts, is obvious to all.

The DUP has turned its back on power-sharing with nationalists and others here for power-sharing with the Tories in London.

It prefers sitting in an empty chamber in Westminster - where no one cares about Ireland - to an assembly here where the majority of MLAs support a society based on equality and civil rights serving a community that voted to remain in the EU.

Under the joint leadership of Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds the DUP are becoming an integrationist party and not a devolutionist one.

The Tory-DUP deal means this British government cannot be relied upon to honour past agreements and its stance is undermining the Good Friday Agreement.

In this situation the Irish government must redouble its efforts to ensure the British government fulfils its obligations and demonstrate that it fully supports a rights-based society in the north.

After ten months of interminable and frustrating talks with the DUP the question that republicans will now be asking themselves, based on this failed experience, is the north ungovernable?