Storm clouds over Stormont

Sir, – David McKittrick's identification of British and Irish governmental inaction as one of the causes of the present political crisis in Northern Ireland reveals a skewed assessment of Stormont's political malaise ("Stormont survival depends on goodwill of both sides", September 15th). McKittrick fails to dismiss the complaint of the Northern Ireland parties that Enda Kenny and David Cameron "took their eye off the ball" and allowed the fragile political arrangement in Stormont to approach collapse. These ludicrous suggestions prompt the question of exactly what kind of role the governments in Leinster House and Westminster ought to have in Northern Irish disputes.

Is it not enough that representatives of these governments presented the Northern Ireland parties with a constitutional framework that would allow them to co-operate and form an administration that could potentially command the support and respect of their population in its entirety? Is it not enough that they have built for them a system where all the socio-religious strata of Northern Ireland can benefit not only from representation but also from the ability to wield executive power in their own defence?

Any further attempt to influence the situation would likely be rejected by the political classes of Northern Ireland, most of whom have jealously guarded their devolved powers against the prospect of direct rule from Westminster and who remain sceptical of the influence of an external Irish administration within their borders. Is it too much to ask of the elected representatives of the Northern Irish people that they co-operate or at least discuss issues that are of genuine political importance rather than fixating on past disputes, or on arrests that fall drastically short of the damning convictions they have been made out to be?

If this is so, then perhaps the appraisal of powersharing government as “a waste of time” that McKittrick attributes to the man on the street is painfully accurate.

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Northern Ireland has all of the constitutional architecture it needs to mediate between the conflicting identities of a historically divided society. Its present dysfunction must be regarded as a failure of the politicians within, not those without. – Yours, etc,

CHRISTOPHER

McMAHON,

Castleknock,

Dublin 15.

Sir, – Your editorial (September 16th) comments that “Sinn Féin’s insistence that the IRA folded its tent and disappeared carries no weight with unionists and little more with nationalists”. While unionist doubts on the issue are clear, from where do you draw your conclusion in relation to nationalists? – Yours, etc,

PATRICK FAHY,

Omagh, Co Tyrone.

A chara, – I for one hope that the current political crisis in the North will result in the termination of the Belfast Agreement and that the talks between the parties and the two governments will create a better agreement.

There are two good reasons why a new agreement is required.

First, there is a growing Catholic population in the North which will be larger than the Protestant population in less than a decade.

Second, the Belfast Agreement says nothing about Scottish nationalism. Scotland is well on track to independence. This will result in a fundamental change to the UK and the relations between all the nations living in Ireland and Britain. These reasons alone are sufficient for a new agreement. – Is mise,

SEANÁN Ó COISTÍN,

An Nás

Co Chill Dara.