NI Secretary may have been signalling to DUP that, if it does not help restore devolution, Sinn Féin will benefit most, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
There was a time when Northern Secretary Peter Hain's radical overhaul of public administration, announced yesterday, would have triggered doomsday warnings about the North's future.
Every picture tells a story, and the orange-green map of how the seven proposed new super councils might look does indeed trigger the notion of repartition as proposed by Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien in 1981.
Three councils to the west and far south dominated by Sinn Féin. Three to the east with the DUP in the ascendant. In the middle, the cockpit council of Belfast, with Alliance barely holding the balance of power as nationalists and unionists battle it out until, possibly, nationalists take over.
Not surprising, therefore, that all the major parties in Northern Ireland, including Alliance, but with the notable exception of Sinn Féin, had reservations, some of them major, about Mr Hain's plan for rationalising local government.
The proposals are wider than that, of course. They also dramatically streamline the operations of health and education, but the dominant image was the map.
Mr Hain was well primed for the sort of questions reporters would throw at him. Did the plan to reduce the number of councils from 26 to seven more powerful councils not amount to "cantonisation", "Balkanisation", a "sectarian carve-up"? he was asked in several interviews.
"No, it didn't," Mr Hain replied on all occasions, before implicitly dismissing such thoughts as alarmist, and swiftly moving on to his brief that this reform of public administration in Northern Ireland was simply to "provide better, more accountable services to citizens".
Dr O'Brien issued his repartition proposals in June 1981 when Ireland was convulsed by the H-Block hunger-strikes, a time when doomsday warnings appeared anything but alarmist.
Mr Hain made no reference to repartition yesterday, or indeed to Dr O'Brien, but his argument was that this is a changed Northern Ireland which is "overgoverned and overadministered" and that talk of green-orange carve-ups was an irrelevancy.
DUP leader Ian Paisley disagreed. This was a clear attempt to "split the province" and allow nationalists "develop their united Ireland policy in the councils that they dominate", he said.
This was a potential giant gerrymander and a further step in the Balkanisation of Northern Ireland, said Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey.
The "Balkanisation" term was also used by Alliance leader David Ford.
The plan would ghettoise the North, said SDLP MP Eddie McGrady.
Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey pooh-poohed suggestions of sectarian agendas. Sounding rather earnestly right-on, he said: "The proposals represent a major step forward in enshrining the principles of equality and power-sharing in new local government structures". But he could not disguise his party's delight at the plan.
That is understandable since very possibly by the time it is implemented in 2009 nationalists could have control of Belfast and therefore four of the seven councils. Wouldn't that be a very powerful indication that a united Ireland could be achieved by 2016?
It might also explain why Sinn Féin Assembly member Francie Molloy was reportedly suspended yesterday for daring to suggest that 15 councils was a more sensible arrangement.
Northern Ireland is a much-improved place on 1981 when Dr O'Brien was proposing to redraw the Border. How you view the proposals is really down to whether people now have an optimistic or pessimistic view of the North's future.
Those who see the glass half empty will justifiably have concerns that this will cement Northern Ireland as a sectarian society.
Those who see it half full will accept that here is a perfectly sensible reform plan. They will point to the checks and balances that Mr Hain proposes to introduce to ensure that super council business is run fairly.
And this is absolutely crucial as to whether the plan will work. Mr Hain published an 11-page consultation document on how the councils might even-handedly function. Very broadly they would be along the lines of the suspended Northern Executive and Assembly, with proposals about collective decision-making, weighted majorities requiring up to 80 per cent support for key decisions, unionist-nationalist rotation of chairman or mayoral positions on the councils, and commissioners running councils when there was absolute deadlock.
Mr Hain hammered home the message that his plan was based on nothing more than simple common sense. Certainly, 26 councils for a population of 1.7 million is not justifiable. Paring down bureaucracy in local government, education and health is needed.
The line taken by the Northern Ireland Office is that Mr Hain, by implementing the reforms now and dealing with difficult issues such as the introduction of water charges, is clearing the ground for the Assembly should political negotiations next year lead to a return to devolution.
There is a certain wisdom in such a policy because there is no doubt that these issues would be too difficult for any new shaky Assembly to tackle.
There is also a powerful subliminal message here. Implicit in Mr Hain's proposals is the message that if Sinn Féin and the DUP can't do a deal, here is the alternative to devolution, with watered-down direct rule tacked on.
And it is clear from the map that this surgery better suits Sinn Féin than the DUP. So, if the DUP wants the Executive and Assembly to have political pre-eminence, then it should start talking soon with Sinn Féin to resurrect devolution.