Clock ticking for Ireland

By Humphrey Carter SINN Fein Councillor and member of the Irish Assembly Francie Molloy said in Palma yesterday that the British government appears to have lost interest in the Irish situation and that the clock is ticking if the Good Friday Agreement is ever going to be fully implemented. All parties are scheduled to re-open negotiations on November 24 and Molloy, who is currently chairing a Preparation for Government Committee with the DUP's Jim Wells, said yesterday that the hope is that the “two parties, in particular the DUP, will come to a conclusion on exactly what are the issues and objections to getting the process back up and running. “At this time, I'd have to say that, of those that have been presented, there are no major issues which would be obstacles to getting the institutions agreed in the Good Friday Agreement up and running by November 24.” A.I would have to say it has to a certain extent. When this government first came to power it was very forthright, Blair and Mowlam got things happening very quickly. But as world developments took place and Britain's involvement in them grew, they got distracted and lost the focus on the Irish situation. I also think that the Irish government also lost its focus on what needs to be done to get the institutions up and running because they are concentrating on the next general elections. Furthermore, the change of government from Clinton to Bush in the States also took some momentum out of the process. What is more, the focus went off the situation as soon as the conflict came to an end, something we, Sinn Fein had been warning of for years. We had been saying that once the conflict ended the governments would need to fill the vacuum which would be created by any failure or delay in the political process. That has not happened and, on the part of the Republicans, I know there is frustration that three years on and there still does not appear to be the political strategy in place to implement the Good Friday Agreement. One really has to ask what are the intentions of British government? Why not simply call the assembly together and, if an agreement still can't be reached, then call fresh elections as any other country would. A.There are signs that that is happening. There are indications that neither the British intelligence nor the British military liked the idea of a political settlement and that they had a military solution to all of this. There are signs that British intelligence has been involved in some undercover stuff trying to cause divisions in Republicanism and unsettling dissident Republicans and Loyalists. While all this is going on, we can't deliver what we promised the people because the British government will not allow the Assembly to meet, so various aspects of the agreement are indeed being undermined. There have been times in discussions with Tony Blair about security measures, such as those about the barriers coming down, included in the Good Friday Agreement which should have been taken, Blair quite often came back and said that he could not implement the security measures because the security services would not agree to that. Our obvious question to him was ‘who's running the country, you or the security services?* Somewhat embarrassing if you are a prime minister but unable to implement an accord you personally signed. Time is running out and we need to control the situation and create a solid ministerial link between the North and the South and get the institutions in place.”