For true democracy in the North, the will of the people must prevail

DESPAIRING though the Northern Ireland peace process may be at the moment, the fact is that much progress has been achieved in the five years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

Today’s impasse is over a battle of words, rather than bombs and bullets, and that in itself is a huge step forward.

The process is, as Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness described it, in a mess, but thankfully the mess is such that it could be cleared up by the appropriate semantics.