Newton Emerson: Covid decisions highlight Stormont's design flaws

The Northern Ireland Executive has made a solid decision on new Covid-19 restrictions, but reached it in a way that has discredited the measures and itself.

This looks like an unavoidable feature of the system: Stormont’s design flaws appear to be exposed as much by success as by failure.

The measures agreed on Tuesday manage to combine difficult political compromises without compromising the overall response to the virus.

Stormont’s scientific advisers had recommended a six-week partial lockdown, including a choice between closing schools or the hospitality industry.

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Sinn Féin was inclined towards a maximal position and wanted schools shut for the duration. The DUP was inclined in the opposite direction and had insisted on schools remaining open throughout.

Hospitality will now close for four weeks and schools for two. The scale and timing of this sits neatly between measures in Britain and the Republic. There could hardly have been a better negotiated outcome. The problem is that it was hammered out exclusively between the DUP and Sinn Féin, then presented to the other three Executive parties less than 10 minutes before they were expected to approve it.

The SDLP, Alliance and UUP had already been kept waiting from mid-afternoon until 11pm while Sinn Féin and the DUP horse-traded, harrumphed and leaked briefings against each other. Alliance and the SDLP refused to be bounced and took to social media to complain.

Inaction and the pandemic now look like parts of the same problem

The Assembly had been convened for an extraordinary evening sitting to approve the package. It was sent home at 11pm and told to come back the next morning. For businesses and the wider public anxiously awaiting decisions, this looked like a grotesque farce.

Powersharing almost collapsed on the way into lockdown in March because of differences between Sinn Féin and the DUP on school closures and synchronisation with the Republic.

Tuesday’s events were progress by comparison. Both main parties were even able to put their dispute in a holding pattern as it re-emerged in recent weeks, by focusing on a demand for more UK funding for whatever was eventually decided.

Restored devolution

However, the comparison smaller parties and many other observers have made is not with March but with January’s New Decade, New Approach deal, which restored devolution after the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scandal.

The deal promised an end to the cynical two-party carve up of power, perceived to have caused Stormont’s preceding three-year collapse. There was to be a return to the all-party coalitions and collective responsibility set out in the Belfast and St Andrews agreements, ensured by new oversight structures, discussion forums and above all by a new culture of respect.

Obviously, none of this has happened. For much of this year, the pandemic has provided an explanation or at least an excuse as to why the structures and forums have not been implemented. Inaction and the pandemic now look like parts of the same problem. The three smaller parties, formerly in opposition, re-joined the Executive in January on the understanding they would no longer be merely a “mudguard” for the DUP and Sinn Féin. Now they look like patsies, as does the entire Assembly, thanks to this week’s on-off reconvening to apply the rubber stamp.

The eternal question about mandatory powersharing – can it deliver government, as opposed to just parties in government – is back in the frame.

Inner and outer rings of coalition are by no means unusual: consider the Greens beside Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil

Sam McBride, the News Letter's political editor, is a detailed observer of Stormont dysfunction. As Tuesday night dragged on, he cited testimony two years ago to the RHI inquiry. Timothy Johnson, the DUP's all-powerful chief executive, told the inquiry there was an inevitable "sausage machine" of deal making between the two largest parties, due to occupying the joint office of the first and deputy first ministers.

Johnson conceded this might look "ugly" but insisted it produced "good outcomes for Northern Ireland" on many occasions. He seemed proud of the pragmatic mechanism the DUP and Sinn Féin had built together.

Parochial reaction

Without blindly defending Stormont or any of its parties, it would be wise to acknowledge Johnson had a point. Some of the media reaction to Tuesday’s politicking was parochial and over the top.

Inner and outer rings of coalition are by no means unusual: consider the Greens beside Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

Governments around the world are wrestling with fraught internal debates over the policy nightmares of the pandemic. Expecting Northern Ireland to produce seamless multi-party consensus is absurd and should be seen in general as an unrealistic standard to set.

After March’s Executive split Sinn Féin was marginalised for months, with every other party against it. For most of Stormont’s modern history unionists would have seized on this as a chance to exclude republicans and promote moves towards voluntary coalition.

This year the DUP bit its lip and waited for relations to re-stabilise, knowing a partnership with Sinn Féin was its only viable future.

There is more organic reform and respect in that than any design could hope for.