33rd Annual Forum of the “Parliamentarians for Global Action” (PGA)

In Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday October 29th 2011

Security Dimension Panel

The Irish Peace Process by Senator Jim Walsh

Following the War of Independence by the IRA, 1916-1921, twenty six of Ireland’s thirty two

counties secured independence from the British Empire under a treaty signed in 1922. This

treaty also gave rise to a civil war between those in the Republican movement who agreed to

accept the treaty and those who opposed it. The Independent State had in excess of 95% of

their population as Catholic while in Northern Ireland it was 60% Protestant/Unionist and

40% Catholic/Nationalist.

There was very little interaction between both parts of Ireland over the following forty years

during difficult economic times and the Second World War.

However, during the 1960’s, the iconic era of modern pop music and flower children, greater

global communications through the medium of television, and the greater manifestation of

civil rights campaigns across many countries had its own effect on Northern Ireland. Inspired

by this new sense of freedom, in pursuit of Human Rights, the Nationalist population of

Northern Ireland took to the streets in a campaign to highlight the discrimination they were

suffering under Unionist dominated rule. This discrimination would have been obvious in the

area of housing allocations, employment opportunities and even in the right to vote.

Eventually these street protests led to rioting, as the Unionist controlled police force

overreacted in their efforts to prevent the civil rights marches taking place. This led to

violence and the first killings of the conflict took place.

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In the previous decades the IRA were relatively inactive with only sporadic incidences.

However, the focus on the civil rights campaign, and the manner in which people were treated

by the security forces mobilised the IRA into activity initially to protect those involved in the

civil rights marches. This inevitably led to paramilitary conflict involving both the IRA and

Loyalist paramilitary organisations. Arising from the violence internment without trial was

introduced in August 1971 – a highly controversial measure.

During this period the British Army had taken control of security in Northern Ireland and at a

civil rights march in Derry on the 30th of January 1972 they shot twenty seven unarmed

civilians, of whom fourteen were killed. This obviously led to a huge international out-cry,

the burning of the British Embassy in Dublin, and created tremendous hostility within

Nationalist Ireland. Bloody Sunday was a significant event in attracting young recruits to join

the ranks of the IRA. The subsequent attempt to try to label the civilians that were shot as

members of the IRA only antagonised and exacerbated the reaction. Interestingly it was only

last year that it was acknowledged that none of those that were killed had arms or were

involved in the conflict with the British forces on Bloody Sunday. A profuse apology from

the British Prime Minister David Cameron was very well received by the citizens of Derry,

thirty eight years after the killings.

The violence and the death toll continued through the 1970’s including, inter alia, the Dublin

and Monaghan bombings carried out by Loyalist paramilitaries involving collusion of the

British Forces, where thirty four people were killed; the Warrenpoint ambush where eighteen

British Army Soldiers were killed by an IRA bomb. A seminal event occurred in the summer

of 1981 when IRA prisoners, campaigning for political status, went on hunger strike and ten

prisoners died. The first to die was Bobby Sands and it had a significant impact on public

opinion. In fact in the general election in the Republic in 1981 a number of the prisoners on

hunger strike were elected to Parliament. They subsequently died. Throughout this period the

conflict was being dealt with as a security issue but gradually it began to dawn on people that

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it required a political intervention and solution. This realisation led in 1985 to the emergence

of a British Irish axis which gave rise to the Anglo Irish Agreement of that year. This gave the

Irish Government an institutional and consultative role in the governing of Northern Ireland

for the first time. It was fiercely resisted by all shades of Unionism to no avail. The

paramilitaries on both sides were not involved in this initiative and the violence continued

including the Remembrance Day IRA bombing in Enniskillen in November 1987 which

killed eleven civilians and one policeman with many others injured. There was wide spread

revulsion and retaliatory sectarian killings by the Loyalist paramilitary groups.

However political dialogue was continuing between the British and Irish Governments and

the axis was further strengthened by the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 and a

Framework Document in 1995, which provided a vision on which the Good Friday

Agreement could be negotiated. The multi-party talks, leading up to this agreement, were

unprecedented in that they brought together for the first time all Northern Irish political

parties, including those linked to paramilitary groups like Sinn Fein, the PUP and the UDP.

The Good Friday Agreement was signed in April of 1998. It set out to redefine three sets of

relations central to the thirty year conflict.

Strand One dealt with relations between the Northern Irish parties, strand two dealt with

North/South relations and stand three dealt with East/West, or British/Irish relationships.

Fundamental to the agreement was a compromise on the constitutional status of Northern

Ireland, where the British Government conceded that they had no strategic or selfish interest

in remaining there, and, would be guided by the principal of consent. This confirmed that the

status quo would remain unless a majority of the population decided otherwise and they

undertook to facilitate any such decision in the future. The Irish Government amended their

Constitution to remove a territorial claim over Northern Ireland.

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The agreement also provided constitutional guarantees for dual nationality, for the

establishment of power sharing institutions now and into the future, and for overarching and

interdependent British/Irish and North/South institutions. A great strength of the Good Friday

agreement was that it was put to plebiscite and passed in Northern Ireland by 71% voting in

favour, and in the Republic of Ireland with 90% voting in favour of it.

Despite this public endorsement the implementation of the agreement was slow and tedious

with many disagreements arising, mostly from issues that could impact on party electoral

support, leading to the suspension of the institutions and the power sharing Executive in

Northern Ireland. The lengthiest being from 2002 to 2007. During that period a shift in

political support in Northern Ireland led to the more hard line Democratic Unionist Party

over-taking the Ulster Unionist Party, which had governed Northern Ireland since partition.

On the Nationalist side the political arm of the IRA, Sinn Fein, replaced the SDLP as the

major party representing the Nationalist population. This gave rise to increased tensions but

patience and persistence from both the Irish and British Governments led to the reinstatement

of the institutions and the establishment of a power sharing Executive on the 8th of May 2007.

The institutions have been up and running since then.

Strand One:

Strand One of the agreement provided for the replacement of direct rule from London with an

elected power sharing Assembly, with extensive devolved Executive powers. First and

Deputy First Ministers would be elected from the Assembly to serve as joint interdependent

presidents of the Executive and the agreement almost ensures that a Unionist and a

Nationalist will share these top two posts. Ministers are appointed to the Executive on the

basis of the d’Hondt formula which ensures that representation of all major parties is included

on the Executive.

Strand Two:

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Strand two establishes a North/South Ministerial Council where Ministers from the Irish

Government and the Assembly Executive would meet to cooperate, consult and develop

policy on areas of mutual interest, including implementation on an all island and cross border

basis.

In each of the six areas of cooperation, namely agriculture, environment, education, health,

tourism and transport, common policies and approaches are agreed in the North/South

Ministerial Council but implemented separately in each jurisdiction. However a greater all

island focus is materialising, for example Tourism Ireland which markets the island, North

and South.

There are also North/South implementation bodies which operate on an all island basis. All

operate under the overall policy direction of the North/South Ministerial Council; these

include Waterways Ireland, Food Safety Promotion Board, Trade and Business Development

Body, Special European Programme Body, a Language Body to promote the Irish language

and Ulster Scots, Foyle Carlingford and Irish Lights Commission.

Strand Three:

Strand three provided for the establishment of a consultative and consensus building British

Irish Council for representatives of the devolved assemblies of the United Kingdom, the

British Government and Irish Government.

The British Irish Intergovernmental Conference brings together the British and Irish

Governments to promote bilateral cooperation at all levels on all matters of mutual interest

within the competence of both governments. The Conference also involves Northern Ireland

Ministers and generally meets at the level of Foreign Affairs Ministers, but provision is also

made for Summit Meetings. The Intergovernmental Conference was hugely significant in the

process of implementing the Good Friday and St. Andrew’s Agreements.

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Agreement on Confidence Building Measures

Critical to the viability of the Good Friday Agreement was agreement on other issues that

were central to the conflict. They were frequently referred to as confidence building

measures. These measures were

A) Decommissioning

The responsibility for achieving the decommissioning of paramilitary arms and effective

demobilisation of paramilitary organisations was given to an Independent International

Commission on Decommissioning, whose job was to monitor, review and verify progress

on the decommissioning. This took considerably longer than expected and in fact was a

significant factor leading to the suspension of the institutions for periods.

B) Demilitarisation and Normalisation of the Security Situation.

The agreement committed the British Government to begin a series of phased

developments to demilitarise Northern Ireland, including the removal of security

operations, the reduction of ground forces to levels compatible with a peaceful society

and the removal of emergency powers.

C) Police Reform

The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) were seen as predominately Unionist, and, a new

beginning was sought in aspiring to a police service capable of attracting and sustaining

support from the community as a whole. The Patten Commission was established which

made recommendations on the procedures and reforms necessary to transform the

existing police force agreed to by the parties to the agreement. This led to a quota system

to ensure that the predominately Protestant police force would recruit Catholic police

officers to achieve this objective.

D) Criminal Justice

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An Independent Commission was established to review the criminal justice system and

make recommendations for its reform. It was also agreed that the justice function would

be devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive. This took until March 2010, when the

parties found a way to implement the policy by agreeing to compromise that the Justice

Minister would be elected by a cross community vote within the Assembly.

E) Prisoners

A key component in achieving support from the paramilitaries was that both the British

and Irish Governments committed to introduce mechanisms of the roll out of early

releases of the prisoners who were affiliated to the organisations judged to be on

unequivocal cease-fire.

F) Civil Rights, Safe Guards and Equality of Opportunity

The British Government committed to incorporate the European Convention on Human

Rights into Northern Ireland law. In addition a statutory Human Rights Commission and

Equality Commissions were established to monitor the institutions of the Good Friday

Agreement.

Conclusion:

A lot of progress has ensued since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Most recently a new

election to the Assembly reinstated the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein as the

leading political parties, with the new Executive under first Minister Peter Robinson and

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, re-elected and working well.

Importantly, partnership and personal relationships are also significantly improving, which

provides a stable foundation for the peace process and for the Province into the future.

In this regard I feel it is worthy of note to mention that the personal chemistry that existed

between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was fundamental to reaching

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agreement in the first instance in 1998 under the expert chairmanship of Senator George

Mitchell from the United States. More importantly, in the following decade, when various

serious obstacles emerged, their determination, perseverance and excellent working

relationship was crucial in their gaining the trust and confidence of all participants and

reaching the point we have now achieved.

This of course has been internationally recognised, in that at this time they are both engaged

in meeting with ETA and the authorities in the Basque Country with a view to achieving a

similar outcome in that region.

The experience in Northern Ireland provides a template for conflict resolution in other areas

around the world. It illustrates clearly that these conflicts may not be settled by security

measures alone. Parliamentarians do and can make a difference when people recognise that

the underlying causes of conflict must be comprehensively settled in order to ensure a

sustainable lasting peace to which we all aspire.