Last week's suspension of the Northern Assembly and Executive and the continuing deadlock does not augur well for the future of the cross-Border bodies which were such a positive aspect of the devolution of power from Westminster, a bonus for all-island co-operation and a component of nationalist agreement to continuing partition. Under the Belfast Agreement the North/South Ministerial Council, the six North/South Implementation Bodies, the British-Irish Council and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference were established, along with the Assembly and Executive, on December 2nd.
The majority of the six Implementation Bodies (waterways, food safety, trade and business, EU programmes, language and fisheries and lights) have been operating at full steam with the assistance of the joint secretariat of Dublin and Belfast civil servants based in Armagh. For the moment, the bodies continue in being, but without a meeting of the North-South Council (the minister-to-minister forums), to direct operations, some will run out of designated activities.
The Council, whose inaugural meeting in Armagh will be remembered for the parade of Mercs from Dublin, is not suspended, but it can't function without its Northern ministers. Ministerial decisions will be needed at a certain point and the corporate plan for all the bodies, which is currently being drafted, cannot be approved since now there are only Dublin ministers.
Staff working in Armagh are confident they have at least a couple more months of work still to go. But unless the deadlock is resolved, they and those in the outlying headquarters of the six bodies may have an uncertain future. Many are on secondment from government departments, North and South, so are secure enough, but others are concerned for their future.