Devolution deadline - Parties must find a way to end impasse

DEADLINES, like rules, are made to be broken. Especially in Northern Ireland, where every deadline imposed by the Irish and British governments down the years has been brushed aside by loyalists or nationalist, or both.

The deadline to end all deadlines has been set for midnight tonight. But according to the Taoiseach, the DUP decision not to nominate Mr Paisley as First Minister, but to share power in May, means this deadline also cannot be met.

Yet, a chink of light can still be seen at the end of the tunnel following Northern Secretary Peter Hain’s declaration that if the DUP and Sinn Féin can hammer out an agreed proposal among themselves, the two governments would consider it.

In other words, if the opposing parties can break the impasse by hammering out a DIY power-sharing deal, the deadline would be put on ice. For now, however, the stark choice confronting the parties is: devolution or dissolution.

In politics, perhaps more than in any other walk of life, the end always justifies the means. In effect, Sinn Féin may have to compromise to let ageing DUP leader Ian Paisley off the hook.

In legal terms, a missed deadline would mean the collapse of Stormont. In that event, politicians will lose their salaries. Cynically, Mr Paisley’s chief critics within his own party all have well-paid jobs in the parliaments of Westminster and Europe.

Furthermore, householders will receive hefty bills for water charges, and Dublin will assume a greater role in running the North’s affairs.

For loyalists that would be a bitter pill to swallow. With bitter divisions emerging within the DUP, the Paisley leadership would be fatally eroded. Astonishingly, given his malign influence over Northern politics in a career spanning more than four decades, he is now being challenged by politicians who, if anything, are even more extreme than he is himself.

With power tantalisingly within his grasp, the Paisley ‘no surrender’ mantra is perceptibly softening. It became crystal clear over the weekend that the DUP leader would not have carried a motion to move forward.

This uncertain scenario explains the note of disappointment in Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s voice as he departed yesterday for the EU’s 50th birthday party in Berlin where he will discuss the unsatisfactory Northern situation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

They will be praying that some sort of deal will be cobbled together in order to keep the North’s precarious political show on the road.

Despite a flurry of diplomatic contacts between Belfast, Dublin and London, the DUP would go no further than indicate a willingness to enter share power with Sinn Féin in May.

Today, Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley will have to look each other in the eye and talk on a face-to-face basis for the first time. Incredibly, other than through a megaphone, the two leaders have never talked.

That said, however, nobody should be surprised if yet another fudge becomes a slippery stepping stone on the tortuous path to power-sharing, real democracy, and lasting peace in the North.