Excellent piece by Emma DeSouza in the Irish Times recently on foot of the Taoiseach's argument that 'too little has been done to build understanding and co-operation between Ireland's North and the South since the signing of the Belfast Agreement'. But as she notes, this argument on his part ignores a key aspect of this, that Dublin and successive Dublin governments have also played their part in that problematic dynamic.
As she notes:
There is no better example of how skin-deep the Coalition parties' commitment is toward including Northern voices than the failure to nominate even one single Northern Ireland resident to the Seanad in 2020. At a critical time for North-South, east-west relations, when Northern Ireland was struggling for a voice after losing representation in the European Parliament, the Irish Government opted to instead use the Taoiseach nominations to look after their party candidates and left Northern Ireland with no representation.
There would be nothing to stop the Government from embedding a policy where a predetermined number of seats would be reserved for nominated representatives in Northern Ireland
She continues:
Since the finalisation of the Belfast Agreement, there have been just two Taoiseach nominations for a Northern Ireland resident to the Seanad; Maurice Hayes in 1997 and Martin McAleese in 2011. (Ian Marshall was elected to the Seanad in 2018 in a by-election for the Agricultural Panel with the backing of then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar).
If this Government were genuine about building understanding, breaking down barriers North and South, and including Northern voices, then one might expect to see unambiguous efforts to boost representation and inclusion. There would be nothing to stop the Government from embedding a policy where a predetermined number of seats would be reserved for nominated representatives in Northern Ireland, and I'm not talking about a token nomination every decade, but real and genuine inclusion to the tone of three seats at a minimum — one for each of the North's dominant demographics.
But...
What we have in place of representation is a litany of failed commitments and promises. Observer status for Northern Ireland in the European Parliament? Dead in the water. Speaking rights for MLAs and MPs from Northern Ireland in the Dáil and Seanad? Blocked by the Government. A referendum on expanding presidential voting rights to Irish citizens in Northern Ireland and abroad? Indefinitely postponed. Outside of the well-intentioned Shared Island dialogue series, which has included several Northern speakers over the past 18 months, what meaningful change or effort has this Government made to increase dialogue and build understanding across this island?
Why would this be so? The cynical view, and I suspect it is far from wrong, is that all the lofty rhetoric is really nothing more than a cosmetic gloss. We often discuss how London seems disinterested in the GFA/BA, and that is clearly true. But it's less often considered how Dublin too has been quite content to allow matters to move along much as they willalbeit by dint of proximity and other aspects it has had a more urgent need to have certain matters addressed . One doesn't have to get anywhere near issues of promoting unity to see that, as DeSouza correctly notes, there's little energy or action to do much of of anything. And there's a political angle too which no doubt adds further to this. Imagine SF voices amongst those allocated seats. That's not the change Dublin wants to see. Platforming a rival from this side of the border and in doing so underscoring how much power that rival has across the island is certainly not on the agenda. But this is very short sighted. It's been notable as DeSouza also notes that there are voices in Unionism who are willing to participate in Dublin's political institutions, even while they remain Unionists. They see no particular contradiction, and if they don't they surely should be encouraged.
Nothing points up the emptiness of the rhetoric around a shared island than the fact that in contexts where this state has the opportunity and authority to make space to give some substance to that goal time and again it resiles from doing so.
No comments:
Post a Comment