Joint sovereignty could offer solution to impasse in North

THE suspended political programme in the North invites review of what exactly makes it so difficult to make the Belfast agreement arrangements operate for the main players.

For the DUP the fundamental problem is not the personalities of Sinn Féin, but the fact that executive power seems to be on offer at the cost of sharing power with Ulster people who are determined to break the link with Britain and who are identified by this.

If one remembers the negotiations that went into the Belfast agreement, Sinn Féin did not want any assembly in the North. They had been arguing for some time for northern representation in Leinster House and they only agreed to a toned-down Stormont in order to act as a vehicle to the North-South bodies.