Paisley visit - DUP steers away from key issues

WHILE the significance of the visit of Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley to Government Buildings for discussions cannot be understated, it does not signal a dramatic shift in policy.

In the extremely unlikely event that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was able to offer any comfort to the DUP on its demand that the Good Friday Agreement be amended, contentious issues still remain to be resolved.

Some inferences might have been drawn by Mr Paisley and his deputy Peter Robinson, who accompanied him, from a reference Northern Secretary Paul Murphy would have made at the Labour Party conference in Brighton had he not taken ill. This was to the effect that the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement “should not be beyond amendment or improvement”.

Interference with the Agreement is not being entertained by Sinn Féin. Even as the talks were taking place in Dublin, Sinn Féin negotiators Mitchel McLaughlin and Martin Ferris were in the US for a series of high-profile meetings to defend the Agreement against the perceived threat from the DUP.

During the recent talks at Leeds Castle, the DUP was rather ambivalent about the possibility of bringing closer a solution to ending IRA activity and decommissioning its weapons.

Instead, the spotlight switched to the problem the DUP would have working with Sinn Féin in a power-sharing government, and the question of greater controls by members of the Assembly over ministers.

In advance of yesterday’s Dublin meeting, a Government spokeswoman indicated Mr Ahern would endeavour to convince Mr Paisley that the IRA was sincerely ready to disarm and end activity in return for a DUP commitment to share power inside the main framework of the Good Friday Agreement.

Perversely, the DUP is seemingly prepared to advance from its traditionally entrenched position only to retreat again to the comfort of its own shadow.

Both the Irish and British Governments are confident that the IRA are willing to end paramilitary activity and decommission their weapons, a corollary that everybody wants, and none more so than Mr Paisley’s own constituents.

In the aftermath of Leeds Castle, David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, said that once issues surrounding paramilitarism were resolved, “second-order” matters such as Assembly structures could be as well.

He added that if the paramilitary issues were resolved, he did not believe that even the most die-hard member of the DUP could stand out against the popular demand to see progress.

What has happened in the meantime is that the crucial issue of ending paramilitary activity and decommissioning have taken a back seat to the question of ministerial control, which, by comparison, should be easy to resolve.

But in raising the question of greater ministerial control, the DUP has summoned up the spectre of majority rule, which would be an untenable, retrograde step.

Despite denials from the DUP that this is their intention, understandably it has evoked the wrath of Sinn Féin.