Durkan: Good Friday Agreement still stands

Democratic Unionist claims that the Good Friday Agreement has been superseded by the St Andrews accord are simply window-dressing, SDLP leader Mark Durkan claimed today.

As Northern Ireland prepared to mark the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday plan, Mr Durkan dismissed DUP claims that it had been superseded by the 2006 St Andrews Agreement.

The Foyle MP said: “Those kind of comments are a cross between a fig leaf and a figment of DUP imaginations.

“The St Andrews Agreement was the sugar for the medicine provided by the Good Friday Agreement.

“Sure there were changes in St Andrews but rather than change the architecture of the Good Friday Agreement, what we have seen is the DUP and Sinn Féin alter some of the fittings and fixtures – changes the DUP may well end up regretting.”

The Rev Ian Paisley’s DUP opposed the Good Friday Agreement when it was forged and in the subsequent referendum which 71.2% of people in the North backed.

But the overall result masked deep divisions within unionism and while the DUP, which was the second largest unionist party in 1998, took its two ministries in the first power-sharing executive at Stormont after the Good Friday Agreement, it refused to take part in cabinet meetings.

In 2002, the executive collapsed over allegations that republicans were operating a spy ring at Stormont and a year later the DUP became the largest party in the Assembly in the 2003 elections.

It was almost four years before another power-sharing executive would be formed, with the DUP and Sinn Féin at the helm.

That took place in May last year after the IRA stood down its units, completed its arms decommissioning process, the St Andrews Agreement was forged in 2006 and Sinn Féin signed up to participating in policing.

In return, the DUP promised to share power.

Mr Durkan, who was one of the SDLP’s senior negotiators 10 years ago, claimed today: “The Good Friday Agreement has stood the test of time.

“At the time we said it provided for partnership and co-operation, not just between nationalist and unionist but for those who voted ’Yes’ in the referendum and those who voted ’No’, and that is how things have turned out.

“Obviously there were disappointments after the Agreement. There were times when we did not get delivery and implementation, where there were stand-offs and the two (British and Irish) Governments failed to show good authority in relation to some issues.

“However, the institutions did not fail, it was the process politics which failed outside the institutions.

“In terms of policing reform, I don’t think people expected them to turn out as well as they did. There were doubts about whether the commission chaired by Lord Patten would make significant recommendations and whether they were going to be implemented.

“However, the policing institutions operated successfully when the political institutions didn’t.

“The promises made to victims and survivors, however, have not been kept.

“I can understand victims who feel as politicians talk about moving forward that they have been forgotten. While victims welcome the progress that has been made, they have mixed feelings over whether their needs are being respected.

“Wider society needs to take victims into account.

“We now have a settled process. What is different now with the power sharing, north-south and policing arrangements is that there is acceptance of them now by all the main parties, particularly the DUP.”