The rapidity with which the Northern Ireland Executive has descended into a full-blown crisis reflects not just a loss of trust between the various parties but their persistent failure to provide any kind of unified, impartial leadership for their divided communities. The Executive was designed as a cooperative, power-sharing arrangement, not as a mechanism for blocking opponents and doling out political spoils. But tribal-based politics continues to flourish, driven by competing internal rivalries.
Two Belfast murders and a PSNI assessment that members of the Provisional IRA may have been involved caused the present upheaval. That was compounded by intelligence that the PIRA continued to exist, although not as a military force. Calls for the expulsion of Sinn Féin from the Executive followed. Upping the ante, Mike Nesbitt of the UUP prepared his party's withdrawal from the Executive. Attempting to defuse the situation, Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers declared the PIRA's existence to have been an open secret and regarded the political impasse over budgetary spending as more importance. It didn't help.
The threat to the devolved administration is beyond doubt. But the public should recognise that the Irish and British governments, through an exercise in “constructive ambiguity”, sowed the seeds of the present crisis. They helped to foster the public notion that the PIRA had “gone away” and “left the stage”. In private, however, they agreed it should continue, in the words of former Attorney General Michael McDowell, as “an unarmed and withering husk”, to guard against the growth of dissident republicans. This manipulation of public opinion has come back to bite them.
Efforts to exploit Sinn Féin’s difficulties were expected. But for Micheál Martin to express alarm over the PIRA’s continued existence is risable, given his position as minister for foreign affairs from 2008 to 2011. Similarly, Mr Nesbitt’s behaviour sits uneasily with his party’s willingness to share a platform with representatives of loyalist paramilitaries. Point-blank denials by the Sinn Féin leadership that PIRA structures persist – in spite of compelling evidence – should not surprise. It is what they do. But their categorisation of those involved in the murder of Kevin McGuigan as “criminals”, subject to law, is welcome. Residual PIRA elements may have slipped the leash.
The DUP is under intense pressure to collapse the Executive. Following a meeting with Ms Villiers, however, deputy leader Nigel Dodds appeared willing to explore less drastic options. What arrangements might satisfy the DUP remain uncertain. But they may include the reestablishment of an independent monitoring commission that will report on the structures, activities and capabilities of republican and loyalists paramilitaries. It's a route worth pursuing.