Madam, - Mark Durkan's recent suggestion to the British-Irish Association that we need to be looking at a political structure beyond mandatory coalition is timely. The early task of devolved government was to take some halting steps away from a time of horror, a period of suffering which had been futile and unnecessary. In our quest for some type of political normality, the priority was to make it possible for former bitter rivals to work in some kind of team structure for the benefit of all citizens. The modus operandi chosen - mandatory coalition - was far from an ideal form of government, but it did build up a degree of mutual understanding across the political spectrum.
Politics by its very nature is evolutionary and I would not like to think that mandatory coalition is the pinnacle of administrative possibility for this part of Ireland. The essence of parliamentary democracy is constructive challenge and this can only exist in a most desultory form where a four-party coalition exists. We are doomed under the present system to a "lowest common denominator" politics.
We are not living in the primitive insulated world of 1960s Stormont - a Bill of Rights, an alert media and vigilant observation from Westminster and Dáil Éireann would make any reversion to old-style discrimination a non-runner. With such safeguards, the prize should be a much more vibrant political culture.
It would be important to tie in to such political evolution the degree of tax-raising powers which elevate current arrangements in Scotland and Wales well above our local version of devolution.
An important first step into these new arrangements would be for the biggest party in the current coalition to accept the bona fides of its major partner and stop filibustering on policing and justice. - Yours, etc,
Cllr PAT McDONNELL,
Leader, SDLP Group,
Omagh District Counci,
Co Tyrone.