It would be a “fatal mistake” to reform Stormont’s powersharing structures during the current deadlock, Bertie Ahern has warned UK and Irish politicians.
Speaking at Parliament Buildings in Belfast on Monday, the former taoiseach insisted the North’s government – which collapsed over a year ago over the DUP’s opposition to the Northern Ireland protocol – must be restored before any fundamental changes are made.
He was addressing the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly (BIPA), a group of legislators from Westminster and the Oireachtas, on the significance of the Belfast Agreement ahead of its 25th anniversary next month.
Regarded as one of the key players in the negotiations that led to the signing of the historic peace deal on Good Friday in 1998, Mr Ahern said he was aware that “people talk” in the Dublin and London governments about the need for “new institutions” in Northern Ireland post-Brexit.
As taoiseach from 1997 to 2008, he said he felt “passionately” about the North-South and east-west relationships.
“We don’t need any new institutions,” he told the Assembly chamber. “In my view, all we need to do is to work on the institutions that were agreed on Good Friday.”
On Saturday, Alliance Party leader Naomi Long described Stormont voting rules for parties that identify as neither unionist nor nationalist as “affront to democracy” and said a potential legal challenge to them was being explored.
But Mr Ahern said that attempting reform during a period of Stormont collapse would “delay” restoration.
“My strong advice is that the institutions should be up and running – do not to fall into the trap of having a debate about reform before the institutions are up and running,” he said.
“And the reason is that there will not be any changes unless there is the ‘three Cs’ – cross-community consent – and you won’t get cross-community consent on most of these issues.
“I think you can have a sensible discussion about reform as we did in the St Andrews Agreement in October 2006. But to try to have that [reform] will delay the Assembly. It will be used as a delaying tactic. So let the institutions be set up as quickly as possible on the end of this current debate on the Windsor agreement ... but do not do it the other way around. It’ll be a fatal mistake, believe me.”
Mr Ahern spoke to BIPA’s 63rd plenary meeting about the “profound change” brought by the Belfast Agreement, saying it gave the North “25 years of fairly perfect peace compared with the 25 years before”.
He expressed concern, however, about the “unfinished work” in dealing with paramilitarism and said he supported the recommendations of an independent report calling for increased engagement with republican and loyalist paramilitaries.
The former taoiseach referenced the attempted murder of Det Chief Insp John Caldwell in Omagh almost a fortnight ago. “It is a fact of life that paramilitaries and the structures of paramilitarism are still there. There should be a process of continuing dialogue with these groups.”
He also urged politicians to be “patient” amid the political impasse as the DUP consider its response to the Windsor framework agreed between the UK government and European Union on the North’s post-Brexit trading arrangements.
Describing the agreement as a “fair examination” of the issues, Mr Ahern said he hoped the deal “can be wrapped up in the short term”.
Meanwhile, Mr Ahern remained coy on the prospect of running for the presidency in 2025.
Almost a month after it was revealed that he rejoined Fianna Fáil 10 years after leaving, he urged reporters to avoid “all kinds of speculation” on whether he would make a bid for the Áras.
“All I did was join my local Cumman branch in Drumcondra and that led to all kinds of speculation, so don’t listen to that too much,” he told reporters after his Bipa. address.
When asked whether he had no interest in running for the presidency, he replied: “I didn’t say that.”
When asked did this mean he was interested in the role, he said: “I didn’t say that either.”
