'Good Friday Agreement can't be rewritten'

The Democratic Unionists were today urged to stop insisting the Good Friday Agreement can be rewritten.

As parties awaited British and Irish government proposals for ending the deadlock over devolution in Northern Ireland, nationalist SDLP negotiator Sean Farren urged the Reverend Ian Paisley’s party to declare its full support for power sharing and cross-border co-operation.

“The Good Friday Agreement is a finely balanced agreement,” Mr Farren said. “Its power sharing institutions, its all-Ireland bodies and its guarantees of human and civil rights are essential to peace and stability.

“Contrary to DUP propaganda, the Agreement contains important safeguards to ensure accountability and transparency within all its operations.

“Like any agreement, its workings can be improved and the SDLP has no difficulty discussing proposals aimed at making the institutions more accountable, more transparent, more efficient and more effective.”

Earlier today, Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said the Rev Paisley and his deputy Mr Robinson stressed during a landmark meeting with the Government yesterday in Dublin that they were not seeking to dramatically change the fundamental principles of the Good Friday Agreement.

However nationalists have accused the DUP of trying to radically rewrite the 1998 accord.

In particular, the SDLP has attacked DUP proposals to change the system for electing ministers to the Stormont executive.

The party has denounced efforts by the DUP to make ministers more accountable to their cabinet colleagues and to the Assembly, accusing the party of trying to exercise a veto over the work in government of other parties.

The DUP has also been accused of trying to strangle the work of the North South Ministerial Council involving Stormont and Irish Government ministers and of trying to limit the amount of cross-border co-operation.

Mr Ahern said if there were changes to the Good Friday Agreement, they must not undermine its fundamental principles.

“Everyone would agree that there has to be accountability and efficiency and value for money,” he said.

“The point would be made by us here in the Irish Republic that we would be contributing 70% of the cost towards the North South Ministerial Council, though obviously we have a duty to our taxpayers to ensure that we are getting value for money as well.”

Mr Farren said the SDLP had put forward proposals during recent talks covering each strand of the Good Friday Agreement.

“These proposals include executive collective responsibility, creating a more effective relationship between ministers and the Assembly, expanding and developing North-South as well as East-West relationships.

“But any agreed improvements to the workings of the Agreement have to respect, not undermine, its essentials.

“The DUP say they are serious about power sharing. If so why are they trying to avoid jointly elected first and deputy first ministers ? Why don’t they share in their flagship councils like Lisburn, Castlereagh and Ballymena, where majority rule continues to hold unfettered sway ?

“The SDLP is very anxious to achieve an early restoration of the institutions and to provide the people of Northern Ireland and of Ireland as a whole with the means of building a truly peaceful, democratic and reconciled society.

“If the DUP want to join with us in this enterprise, they must stop the pretence that the Good Friday Agreement must be rewritten.”