I see that Hugh Orde met an Assembly committee yesterday on the matter of the devolution of policing and justice powers. Orde said he sees no reason not to meet the May 2008 target date while unionists, predictably, insist that it won't happen until certain other conditions are met (including, shockeroonie, another pre-condition for republicans).
Sinn Féin's response is here, and one line is particularly noteworthy:
The devolution of Policing and Justice was a key element in the negotiations that led to the restoration of the political institutions.
What that translates to, of course, is "We secured our membership's approval on the basis of a reassurance that policing and justice would be devolved by May 2008 and we're going to have serious problems if that doesn't actually happen". There is no other way to read it, given that all and sundry on the unionist side were making it perfectly clear when St Andrews was agreed that they were not signing up to a hard-and-fast deadline.
In a way it reminds me of the old decommissioning debate. The GFA, remember, called for all parties to "use their influence" to achieve decommissioning within two years. SF said at the time that this wasn't a deadline. The IRA at the time said flat-out that they would decommission only when they were good and ready to. Nonetheless, unionists insisted it was a time-locked guarantee and sold it to their people as such. We all know the rest.
The only real question now is - when May 2008 comes and goes and there is still no devolution, will the governments do as they did with decommissioning, insist there actually was a deadline and turn against the side refusing to meet it? Or will they take a literal interpretation of St Andrews and accept the unionists' demands for further concessions? Precedent only points to one answer.
***
On another matter, the unionists are apparently unhappy at the suggestion that the British Government might admit that there was a war going on in the Six Counties.
Well, Chichester-Clark admitted it 36 years ago, what's the point of denying it now?
Showing posts with label Good Friday Agreement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Good Friday Agreement. Show all posts
Republican revisionism and the GFA
I've just been listening to Newstalk 106, where Des Dalton of Republican Sinn Féin was briefly interviewed on the subject of that party's Ard Fheis, to be held this weekend.
In the course of the interview it was put to Dalton that the people of Ireland, north and south, voted in favour of the Good Friday Agreement. Dalton denied that this was true: "The people of the 26 Counties didn't even get a chance to vote on the Stormont Agreement," he said.
This is an allegation the GFA's opponents have been levelling for years, and it baffles me. Did they not bother to read the text of the constitutional amendment they (presumably) voted against in 1998? The very first line of it reads:
The State may consent to be bound by the British-Irish Agreement done at Belfast on the 10th day of April, 1998, hereinafter called the Agreement.
You can't get much clearer than that. Obviously the most emotive part of the referendum, for most people in the 26, was the removal of Articles 2 and 3 but it's pure historical revisionism to claim - as RSF and the others constantly do - that that is all the southern electorate voted on.
I'm not the world's biggest fan of the GFA, but I really don't see any credible argument that its passage wasn't the will of the Irish people as expressed at the time.
In the course of the interview it was put to Dalton that the people of Ireland, north and south, voted in favour of the Good Friday Agreement. Dalton denied that this was true: "The people of the 26 Counties didn't even get a chance to vote on the Stormont Agreement," he said.
This is an allegation the GFA's opponents have been levelling for years, and it baffles me. Did they not bother to read the text of the constitutional amendment they (presumably) voted against in 1998? The very first line of it reads:
The State may consent to be bound by the British-Irish Agreement done at Belfast on the 10th day of April, 1998, hereinafter called the Agreement.
You can't get much clearer than that. Obviously the most emotive part of the referendum, for most people in the 26, was the removal of Articles 2 and 3 but it's pure historical revisionism to claim - as RSF and the others constantly do - that that is all the southern electorate voted on.
I'm not the world's biggest fan of the GFA, but I really don't see any credible argument that its passage wasn't the will of the Irish people as expressed at the time.
Liar
Enda Kenny today: "We support the implementation in full of the Good Friday Agreement."
Except for the release of a few of the prisoners covered by its terms, you mean.
Except for the release of a few of the prisoners covered by its terms, you mean.
The Border Fox goes free
INLA prisoner Dessie O'Hare has been freed from prison today under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
This was absolutely the right decision. There can be no question that he was a qualifying prisoner. Under the GFA, anyone held in prison for a scheduled offence (or in the 26 Counties, the equivalent thereof), who is allied to an organisation on ceasefire, qualifies for release. O'Hare clearly met this criteria and should have been released long ago.
But by the same token, so should the Castlerea Five. None of the excuses that the Irish Government has given for keeping the remaining four imprisoned stand up. It doesn't matter whether or not the IRA were on ceasefire at the time of the action (although they weren't); nor whether or not the IRA accepted responsibility for the action at the time; nor whether their conviction was obtained before or after the adoption of the GFA. The GFA does not provide for any of these exceptions. The only exception it provides for is if the prisoner's organisation is not on ceasefire. Even the High Court acknowledged this, although it (wrongly, I believe) found that the Government had discretion to refuse to release certain prisoners anyway.
Why was Dessie O'Hare's release delayed for as long as it was? I'm not entirely sure, but I would imagine it was to do with the widely-held view of him as someone who remains dangerous notwithstanding his organisation's ceasefire. I have certainly heard this view expressed by a number of ex-prisoners who knew him. But there are no such concerns about the Castlerea men. Now that O'Hare is out, there can be no excuse for keeping Jerry Sheehy, Michael O'Neill, Pearse McAuley and Kevin Walsh in. They should be released immediately.
This was absolutely the right decision. There can be no question that he was a qualifying prisoner. Under the GFA, anyone held in prison for a scheduled offence (or in the 26 Counties, the equivalent thereof), who is allied to an organisation on ceasefire, qualifies for release. O'Hare clearly met this criteria and should have been released long ago.
But by the same token, so should the Castlerea Five. None of the excuses that the Irish Government has given for keeping the remaining four imprisoned stand up. It doesn't matter whether or not the IRA were on ceasefire at the time of the action (although they weren't); nor whether or not the IRA accepted responsibility for the action at the time; nor whether their conviction was obtained before or after the adoption of the GFA. The GFA does not provide for any of these exceptions. The only exception it provides for is if the prisoner's organisation is not on ceasefire. Even the High Court acknowledged this, although it (wrongly, I believe) found that the Government had discretion to refuse to release certain prisoners anyway.
Why was Dessie O'Hare's release delayed for as long as it was? I'm not entirely sure, but I would imagine it was to do with the widely-held view of him as someone who remains dangerous notwithstanding his organisation's ceasefire. I have certainly heard this view expressed by a number of ex-prisoners who knew him. But there are no such concerns about the Castlerea men. Now that O'Hare is out, there can be no excuse for keeping Jerry Sheehy, Michael O'Neill, Pearse McAuley and Kevin Walsh in. They should be released immediately.
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