Smart thinking, not foot stamping from politicians
Caoimhghin O Caolain's threat to pull the plug on the Assembly if policing and justice aren't devolved quickly enough was a sign of weakness, not strength.
There is a good case to be made for the transfer of policing and justice powers to Stormont but, going by opinion polls and radio phone-ins, the topic isn't at the top of many people's agenda. Floods, spiralling inflation and the housing crisis are the sort of issues voters are looking to Sinn Fein, the DUP and the other parties to provide a lead on.
The demand on the ground is for local parties to use whatever leverage they have with Westminster, Europe, Washington, Dublin and anywhere else to secure increased investment in jobs and funding for public services. What people want is a bit of smart thinking from the politicians pocketing fat salaries in the middle of a recession, not foot stamping displays at republican commemorations or elsewhere.
At times, O Caolain's speech read like a script for Folks on the Hill.
"When Sinn Fein changed our policy on policing in the North, accepting that a new beginning was being made, it was with the prospect that policing and justice powers would be transferred by May of this year," O Caolain declared.
The use of the word "prospect" is interesting. It concedes the point that there was really no guarantee on transfer of powers when Sinn Fein changed its policy. They jumped first, just as David Trimble jumped first when he entered government with Sinn Fein on the "prospect", but not the guarantee, that there might be IRA decommissioning within two years.
Trimble could be permitted a hollow laugh at Sinn Fein's predicament, and, if there is an afterlife, so could James Crossan, the IRA man at whose commemoration O Caolain was speaking.
Crossan was a Sinn Fein organiser and IRA intelligence officer in Co Cavan, according to a pamphlet written to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. He was killed when the RUC opened fire on him from across the border in Fermanagh on August 24, 1958. Police claimed that he was reconnoitring a customs post at Mullan, near the spot where his body was found, for a planned attack, though republicans denied this and swore revenge. It was the sort of operation that Ian Paisley Jnr might have approved – and it all happened under fully devolved policing and justice powers.
Crossan's commemoration was an ironic venue to choose for a call for the return of control of security powers to Stormont but O Caolain didn't stop at that.
"If we are forced to conclude that change will not be forthcoming from the Executive, then we will have no option but to pull out our Ministers and seek to put pressure where responsibility ultimately lies, which is on the British Government in London," he went on.
It is a sign of how far republicans have come when they are now threatening to pull down a local Irish administration with a cross-border dimension in the hope that the British government will fight their corner for them.
Sinn Fein's position is unenviable, but they have nobody to blame but themselves.
It is Sinn Fein, and not any other party or group, which put itself in this position. It has made a shibboleth out of the devolution of policing and justice. It has become a matter of pride, and the leadership has so oversold it to their membership, that they will lose face if they can’t deliver.
The upshot is that the DUP are now in a strong position and, behind the bluster, Sinn Fein has been giving ground in an effort to move things along. They have caved in on their demand for two separate ministries and have conceded that, for the foreseeable future, Sinn Fein will not hold the portfolio.
There will never be a better moment for unionists to ignore the verbals and cut a deal with them.
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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