Resignation at Stormont - Impasse rooted in a violent past

IT is hard not to think that in a society that had enjoyed stability and peace for longer than Northern Ireland has that Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness might have felt compelled to resign as Stormont’s deputy first minister over Democratic Unionist Party leader and first minister Arlene Foster’s repeated refusal to stand aside during an investigation into the renewable heating incentive scandal.

That Mr McGuinness, who has struggled with poor health, worked for many years with Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson — hardly blushing violets — without such extreme protests suggests Ms Foster has not embraced the art of political compromise, the lubricant of possibility.

Her intransigence, or as she puts it, her refusal to be dictated to by Sinn Féin, looks set to spark a Stormont election and generational change in Sinn Féin’s leadership earlier than anticipated.

Leaving aside, if that is possible, the terrible division, injustice and violence that scarred the North for so long, Ms Foster has a case to answer.

She is compromised by a conflict of interest and her position is untenable until the full facts are established.

Her intransigence and Mr McGuinness’s resignation are tragically rooted in the past, one that has little enough to do with wasteful fuel schemes.

This crisis is another legacy of violence and the refutation of democracy that for far too long sustained terrorism in the North.

Will it ever end?