We need to know: do nationalists and unionists even want to share power?

Why bother? George Mitchell, Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss have come and gone and the best we got was ‘constructive ambiguity’ and hope rather than solidity. The British and Irish governments have had their own go at facilitation, yet one deadline after another was ignored and we always ended up with yards of sticking plaster and more unaddressed issues than we started with.

What makes anyone believe that this time would be any different? Yes, a psychiatrist or marriage councillor may be able to help; or Gerry Springer, or even Judge Judy – people who have a background in dealing with the dysfunctional and disagreeable. Hell’s teeth, guys, give me £1,000 a day, a suite in a five-star hotel, my own chauffeur and the serial rights to the book and I’ll chair the talks for you.

And since I possess my own finely tuned crap detector and don’t do subtlety, I wouldn’t be indulging the usual nonsense from the parties. They’ve spent years being pampered by prime ministers, presidents, statesmen and so-called celebrities and they’ve got it into their heads that they are very important. They’re not. For good measure, I’d also bung the whole lot of them on to a remote island and remove phones, computers, televisions, newspapers and all contact with the outside world for three weeks.

The first question they need to answer is a brutally simple one: do they actually want to govern together? You can set up as many new bodies as you like and tinker about with the existing institutions; but they can only be effective if the parties want to share power with a common purpose and end in mind.

Let’s face it, almost everything that has happened since 1998 (and I’ve actually lost count of the crisis talks, side deals, understandings, arrangements, ‘new’ agreements, stand-offs, potential crises, real crises, temporary resignations, Fresh Starts et al) has amounted to tinkering. And the purpose of that tinkering has been to convince the rest of us – because they themselves know it’s mere smoke and mirrors – that they are serious about solutions and consensus. I’m not sure they are.

Governing Northern Ireland is not difficult: it really isn’t. Health, education, employment, infrastructure and the economy are top of any government’s list. Cancer makes no distinction between unionists and nationalists. Intelligence isn’t the prerogative of one side or the other. Potholes banjax all types of car, irrespective of who drives them. Poor public services hit all of us. So there’s no reason why the parties couldn’t agree and then take collective responsibility for a Programme for Government that prioritises the problems and then addresses them in order.

Increasing hospital waiting lists are not the fault of Sinn Fein or the DUP: they are the fault of the Executive. The ongoing nonsense over post-primary transfer tests is not the fault of the DUP and Sinn Fein: it is the fault of the Executive. The latest uncertainty over corporation tax is not the fault of one or the other: it is the fault of both – in the Executive (or not in it at all, as is the case now).

And, just in case the SDLP, UUP and Alliance are nodding their heads in agreement, it’s worth bearing in mind that most of these problems bedevilled previous multi-party Executives. If they’re going to govern together then they first need to agree together.

Where they do have real difficulty – which I can understand – is over the ‘big ticket’ issues like legacy, paramilitarism, victims and agreed narrative etc. They have difficulty because they all have baggage. They have difficulty because they don’t agree on the constitutional future; let alone agree on the official name of the country/province/region/place (go on, take your pick) they govern. And for so long as the day-to-day issues of government (health, education…) are inter-linked to the ‘big ticket’ problem issues (it’s what’s known as the nothing-is-agreed-until-everything-is-agreed approach), then for so long will the Executive remain dysfunctional and prone to serial crises.

My long-held view is that we need to find a way of separating the two. In other words, instead of trying to deal with them together, deal with the everyday stuff through the Executive and outsource the other issues. And one other suggestion: rather than set up bodies/panels/commissions based on us-and-them membership (which will begin from the premise that their conclusions must roughly concur with the existing baggage-based opinions of the two big parties), create bodies with bona fide experts in the field who will not be afraid to draw their own conclusions. Put bluntly: we need to challenge existing opinion (much of which is often anecdotal or just plain wrong) rather than merely shore up existing prejudice and then attempt to build compromise on weak foundations.

The Good Friday Agreement was a reasonable template and a worthwhile – albeit calculated – risk. It was never meant to be the solution in and of itself. I argued back in 1998 that it would be possible to get to grips with the everyday stuff (let’s call it the nitty gritty of government) and the ‘big ticket’ problem issues – but only if two questions were answered; and answered unambiguously. Do unionist and nationalist parties actually want consensual power sharing? Do their voters want it?

It is increasingly difficult to avoid the conclusion that the answer to both those questions is no. One set of talks ended last week. Another begins today – with little grounds for optimism. Mind you, since the definition of optimism in local politics is so broad based, the news that Jerry Springer was officiating a same-sex marriage between the DUP and SF would be hailed as an “important breakthrough and much needed fresh start”.