North crisis - Suspension a short-term solution

THE suspension of the Northern Ireland institutions, expected to be announced today, is another in a series of similar moves which serves to protect the peace process but does nothing to resolve some of the fundamental problems which retard progress to normality.

Also, there is the danger that another suspension holds the risk that, in the vacuum caused by the absence of the power-sharing government, those problems will become exacerbated.

One underlying problem, alluded to by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on television yesterday, is that on too many sides there is still not a move away from the past.