Flanagan calls for talks to break political logjam in NI

The Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan has called for political talks to try to break the political logjam in Northern Ireland.

As the DUP and Sinn Féin in particular remain deadlocked on a range of issues Mr Flanagan told the British-Irish Association in Oxford this evening that the Government is committed to holding political talks.

"In the months ahead and in facing current challenges, there is no viable alternative to the early resumption of political talks and the Irish Government is committed to using its influence and resources to achieve that objective," he said in Pembroke College in Oxford.

He was speaking at the British Irish Association which for more than 40 years on an alternating annual basis in Cambridge and Oxford brings together politicians, historians, academics, clergy, community workers and journalists to discuss the political process in the North.

Mr Flanagan said that in the light of the current impasse in Northern Ireland, some parties have called on the two governments "to face up to their responsibilities" and to actively intervene.

"It seems to me that, as guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement, a key responsibility of the two governments is to respect the political institutions of that agreement and the democratic mandates of the politicians who were elected to serve in the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive and who must now take decisions on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland," he added.

Mr Flanagan spoke of the necessity for talks to address matters such as welfare reform, the past, parades and flags which have triggered divisions between the two main Northern parties, the DUP and Sinn Féin.

Mr Flanagan warned of the risk that the political process in Northern Ireland could settle for a “negative peace - that is a peace that delivers an absence or abatement of violence but not much more”.

“We must hold ourselves to a higher standard, take heart from how much progress we have made thus far and reaffirm effective partnership government that finds solutions to economic, social and political issues,” he said.

“Many people expressed concern that support for the principles that brought us through the peace process is weakening. This is a very troubling message but it tallies with the concerns expressed by the Irish Government over the course of the past year as politics in Northern Ireland has atrophied across a range of issues,” he added.

Mr Flanagan said this not only applied to the “reconciliation agenda, which goes to the heart of the peace process itself, but other bread and butter issues have also fallen foul of disagreement within the Executive”.

And he added, “In looking at where there are logjams now in the peace process, I see parallels between the contentious issues around identity that are unsettling Northern Ireland now, as it is building a new society and politics after the trauma of the Troubles, and the issues of contention a century ago when people in a newly divided Ireland on both sides of the border were coming to terms with the losses of the First World War, the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, and civil war.”

Mr Flanagan said that a century ago, all too quickly the ground narrowed and, arguably, continued to narrow over the following decades. “We cannot allow people in Northern Ireland or across these islands be forced onto narrow cultural and political ground. In particular, we cannot allow vestiges of community division and sectarianism to remain unchecked, to fester and to skew perspectives,” he added.

“I am concerned that political logjams to the reconciliation agenda today have the potential to affect and infect all elements of life in Northern Ireland and across the island of Ireland, from the economy, to public safety, to cultural expression. I am also concerned that the concept of culture, which should be about liberating perspectives and connecting people to each other, is being used as an instrument to divide communities.

“The use of language such as ‘cultural war’ is not only paradoxical in meaning but also sadly reflective of narrow mindsets,” added Mr Flanagan.