US special envoy for Northern Ireland could be appointed ‘very soon’, ex-ambassador says

A US special envoy for Northern Ireland could be appointed “very soon” to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement, a former Irish ambassador has said.

Daniel Mulhall also said a visit by US president Joe Biden “could provide some of the atmospherics that would make this anniversary a positive thing rather than otherwise”.

Mr Mulhall is a former ambassador to the US, the UK and Germany, and is currently Professor of Irish Studies at New York University.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Politics programme, he said it would be “surprising” if the Democratic administration in the States did not appoint an envoy in the near future.

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There has been speculation the appointment could be made in the coming weeks.

“We’re now at the midpoint of the president’s term and this would seem to me to be a good time to do something like this, especially as we’re coming up to the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday [Belfast] Agreement,” the former ambassador said.

The post has been vacant since the last US special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mick Mulvaney – who was appointed by former US president Donald Trump – resigned following the riots in the Capitol building in Washington in January 2021.

Mr Mulhall said while he “would not expect a special envoy to want to get involved in the nitty gritty surrounding the Northern Ireland protocol, I do think that somebody coming over to Britain and Ireland with a mandate from the US president, it does have a certain ability to maybe change the mood, change the atmosphere, explain some of those general messages from the US administration that I think in the past have been very effective”.

“Whenever we’ve had a stalemate, including in the run up to the Good Friday [Belfast] Agreement – I was involved after all in the Irish delegation at that time and I do remember the sort of positive role that the Americas played at that time because they had this kind of can-do mentality.”

He said he hoped the 25th anniversary of the signing of the agreement – which ended the Troubles in Northern Ireland and established the powersharing government at Stormont – would be “an occasion to remind people of what has been achieved and to get away from the sort of disputes that have affected the situation over the last couple of years and try to maybe rediscover the spirit of 1998 when there was a genuine effort made by the political leadership from both sides at that time to sort of bridge that gap”.

The political institutions set up under the Belfast Agreement have been in limbo since the elections in May, when the DUP refused to re-form the Assembly or Executive until its demands over the Northern Ireland protocol – which it opposes – are met.

A number of deadlines to restore the Assembly have not been met, and the Northern Secretary has set a further time limit of January 19th to reform the political institutions or face an election within 12 weeks.

The prospect of a visit by Biden to mark the signing of the Belfast Agreement is expected to increase the pressure to restore the institutions in time for the anniversary.

Mr Mulhall said he hoped Biden would be able to visit Ireland, North and South, in April.

“He’d be made very welcome widely across the whole island of Ireland and I think it would be great for someone with a background like his, an Irish American background, to pay a visit to Ireland, especially at a time when you have this momentous anniversary,” Mr Mulhall said.