Opinion

William Scholes: Latest Stormont talks an exercise in embalming futility

William Scholes

William Scholes

William has worked at The Irish News since 2002. His areas of interest include religion and motoring.

As the Sinn Féin delegation arrived at Parliament Buildings this week, political agreement between the parties looked like being far from round the corner. Picture by Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker
As the Sinn Féin delegation arrived at Parliament Buildings this week, political agreement between the parties looked like being far from round the corner. Picture by Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker As the Sinn Féin delegation arrived at Parliament Buildings this week, political agreement between the parties looked like being far from round the corner. Picture by Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

THE return of assembly members to Stormont this week had a tragic quality that almost, if you squinted, lent the whole enterprise an air of dignity.

Almost, that is, but not quite.

It's true, there is a dignity of sorts in embarking upon a task that is widely regarded as doomed to failure.

There may even be a smidgen of dignity in some brief moment between talks starting and them grinding towards their inevitable, acrimonious and unseemly conclusion.

But there is no dignity if that task has already been embalmed in cynicism and mean-spiritedness.

Expecting the current manifestations of the DUP and Sinn Féin to form an accountable, competent and respectful power-sharing government certainly falls into the category of embalmed futility, particularly given all the murky water that has passed under the bridge - to Scotland and beyond - since RHI presaged the executive's collapse.

The impression that 'something might happen' was heightened, at least a little, by the mere presence of more bodies around Parliament Buildings.

This was thanks to the secretary of state extending the so-called smaller parties the so-called courtesy of an invite to the so-called talks.

Delivering a convincing impersonation of a man who knows his role is destined to be that of window dressing but won't admit it, Ulster Unionist leader Robin Swann stressed that his party weren't at the talks to provide window dressing; Alliance and SDLP representatives made similar noises.

Far from asking them to help with a new birth, it is hard to avoid the idea that Karen Bradley has merely invited more people to attend a wake.

With the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement reduced to a death rattle, the real tragedy isn't to be found in the wasted efforts of MLAs and the governments.

It is to be found in the realisation that it is a matter of when, not if, the Good Friday Agreement is pronounced dead.

Even talking heads from the SDLP, Alliance and UUP have been unable to summon genuine optimism.

They're all going through the motions.

Yes, the DUP and Sinn Féin are each busy expressing their willingness to form an executive tomorrow, to get down to business, promising to sort out health and education - because they made such a good job of that before, didn't they...? - and generally spread peace, joy and smooth tarmac on bumpy roads.

But they've been trotting out that same nonsense for so long now that it has become little more than a reflex, a sort of political muscle memory.

The issues are by now so well known, so widely rehearsed, so deeply entrenched and etched in red lines wider than a Tyrone pothole, that it is impossible to see how we reach a sustainable power-sharing government from where we now stand.

Still, the momentary shift of focus from Westminster to Stormont gives Arlene Foster the opportunity to remind everyone that she is still the DUP heid yin.

A Conservative MP this week observed that Theresa May has become so diminished in her power and authority that she is "like a Soviet leader who comes to the window to be seen but no-one is sure if they are alive".

If nothing else, the intermittent political talks in Northern Ireland provide Mrs Foster with a window of her own from which to be seen; when direct rule eventually arrives, one wonders if the party could take a leaf from Sinn Féin's book and rebrand her job as 'DUP leader in Ulster'.

Until then, we are stuck with our current system of cacotopia, in which everything is as bad as it can be.

With its onomatopoeic crackle, 'cacotopia' is not only a more satisfying word to utter than the alternative 'dystopia', but it also has a pleasing resonance with 'cack' and 'cack-handed'.

How else to describe a place which has wilfully and disgracefully ignored the plight of survivors of abuse in state-run children's homes and other institutions, heaping further suffering upon them?

How else to describe somewhere with a health and social care system stretched beyond its limits, or where hundreds of primary schools find they can't live within their budgets?

And although the north-south electricity interconnector has - finally - got the go-ahead, it doesn't paper over the cracks, never mind fill the potholes, of crumbling infrastructure elsewhere.

The monumental ineptitude thus far disclosed in the RHI inquiry would suggest that the civil service is at least as cacotopic as the politicians.

It's all rather depressing. And tragic.