“Does the DUP have the ability to say yes to anything?”
The view from Dublin is that the British government has secured very significant concessions from the European Commission in the negotiations on changes to the Northern Ireland protocol – changes that for a long time Brussels refused to countenance.
But there is no consensus in the Irish Government about whether the deal will be sufficient to assuage unionist fears about Northern Ireland being separated economically from the rest of the UK and persuade the DUP to re-enter the Stormont Assembly and the powersharing administration.
Senior sources express different views, including the above.
Some believe that the DUP will never agree to anything that treats Northern Ireland differently and that the party will retreat to the traditional redoubt of unionism: saying “never” and crying betrayal. The immediate reactions of Sammy Wilson and Ian Paisley to the deal would tend to support that analysis.
Others believe that DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson wants to accept the deal but will have to work on his party, perhaps for some time, to secure their buy-in.
But all in Dublin believe that this will be as good as it gets for the DUP. Refusing to accept this agreement, they believe, will simply lead to its implementation anyway.
British prime minister Rishi Sunak definitely wants the Stormont Executive and Assembly to function; but he is more concerned with the state of the British economy as a whole.
There is unlikely to be any political recovery for the Conservatives without an economic recovery, and the establishment of better relations with the EU is a key part of his economic strategy. The DUP, some senior officials expect, won’t be allowed to interfere with that.
Several Dublin sources focused on the potential economic benefits to Northern Ireland of the proposed agreement. “It’s a chance to reverse decades of economic decline in the North,” said one source.
“Jeffrey [Donaldson] should say, ‘Look we’ve achieved enormous progress, we didn’t get everything we wanted, but we will carry on the fight in the assembly.’ Maybe after an election,” says one figure in Dublin.
Whatever their view, all sources in Dublin agree that the less said by those in Government Buildings, the better. Though Donaldson has privately cordial relations with senior figures in the Irish Government, the DUP is unlikely to respond positively to exhortations from Dublin to just sign up to the agreement quickly and quit their moaning.
So Taoiseach Leo Varadkar declined repeated invitations from the Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald to do just that in the Dáil on Tuesday.
“There is now, I am sure the Taoiseach will agree, no logic for the DUP to continue its blockade,” McDonald asserted.
“The negotiations are over. The deal has been struck. Yes, we need to pore over the fine detail of that, but I am sure the Taoiseach will agree that we can do that work with a functioning Assembly and an Executive in place,” she said.
“There is now no room for further delay or prevarication. Nine months on, people in the North need their government up and functioning. Will the Taoiseach join with me in calling on the DUP to make that happen without further delay?”
The Taoiseach, however, did not join with the Sinn Féin leader in pressing the issue. He said that the DUP had asked for some time, and they should be given that time.
“That is not,” he said, “unreasonable.”
Softly softly is the approach in Dublin. Sunak may be at the hard sell but the DUP will make a decision in its own good time.
Meanwhile, Dublin, London and Brussels will just have to wait.
