Newton Emerson: Does Northern Ireland need a civic forum that cannot collapse?

A new mechanism for consulting civic society is a part of the Stormont talks, Alliance leader Naomi Long has revealed.

Hopes that public engagement might break the political deadlock in Northern Ireland have become so desperate that referendums have been seriously suggested – or at least, suggested by serious people – on same-sex marriage, abortion, an Irish language Act and the Brexit backstop.

Ireland’s Constitutional Convention has provided a timely example of unlocking controversial decisions through citizen involvement, yet this continues to inspire little interest north of the Border.

Even the use of juries is problematic in Northern Ireland. Randomly selecting citizens for a major political convention looks like a leap too far.

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Any group empanelled on the future of devolution would be expected to reflect the balance of unionists and nationalists in the general population, plus the growing centre ground, plus the eight other equality categories specified in the Belfast Agreement.

One of those categories, “political opinion”, is so expansively defined that, strictly speaking, a convention would have to replicate the Stormont deadlock before it sat down.

The model of engagement preferred at Stormont is the Civic Forum, an agreement institution that operated from 2000 to 2002.

It comprised 60 members appointed from 10 sectors, including the arts, business and trade unions. The forum was soon viewed as a predictable talking shop that had been captured by the usual suspects.

Sinn Féin and the DUP declined to revive it in 2007, when they restored Stormont after its previous collapse.

Long said talks are looking for something “akin to the Civic Forum” but without its faults of being “large and unwieldy”.

That has already been tried – the Stormont executive set up a Civic Advisory Panel in 2016, essentially recreating the forum but with only six members. This was presented as “a new engagement model”, the forum’s direct successor and the product of years of deliberation. It had time to hold four meetings before Stormont collapsed again.

There must be a suspicion parties are now considering a number between six and 60 to apply to the same idea.

Depolarise

The only sign of a new idea has come from Irish Senator and unionist Ian Marshall, elected last year by the Seanad's agriculture panel.

In an interview published last weekend, Marshall said if Stormont had a senate it would help to depolarise its “gold-fish bowl politics of green and orange”.

A consultative body need not collapse along with the executive and the assembly, provided it is not over-stuffed with party-political nominees

The original Stormont had a 26-member senate and Parliament Buildings retains the senate chamber, which hosts assembly committee hearings and was the venue for the inquiry into the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme. Why not use it to house a civic forum, convention or some other form of consultative gathering?

Second chambers have come to be seen as almost the opposite of public engagement, despite attempts around the world – including in Ireland – to give them more forum-like compositions.

Stormont’s senate was elected by its Commons, producing a pointless duplication. Proponents of the Civic Forum were at pains to point out it was not a senate and care was taken to hold its meetings away from Stormont, as if it would be tainted by association.

But value remains in the symbolism and proximity of that second chamber.

Inserting a consultative body into the building, across the Great Hall from the assembly, would undeniably change the look and feel of devolution.

One pertinent effect might be people remaining in Stormont after Sinn Féin or the DUP walk out.

A consultative body need not collapse along with the executive and the assembly, provided it is not over-stuffed with party-political nominees. Even without an executive to seek its opinion, such a body might continue for a while with its existing workload, then gladly make itself available to the civil service and the Northern Ireland Office for whatever fig-leaf of accountability is required to avoid or introduce direct rule.

The lights would stay on at Stormont and the appearance of decisions being taken there would persist, making parties sulking on the sidelines look increasingly petty. It is a prospect that might cause anyone planning a sulk to reconsider.

“Sustainability” is a key topic at the talks – the term refers to making it more difficult for one party to collapse devolution.

The only idea Sinn Féin and the DUP have had on this, both in the present negotiations and in their failed deal last year, is to extend the period it takes for a walk-out to trigger a collapse, from one week to several months. They would then use this time to try patching up their differences. A consultative body in the senate chamber could provide assistance and motivation.

There is a neat historical resonance to a unionist in the Irish senate suggesting a Stormont equivalent. The original northern and southern parliaments were meant to share a senate and echoes of the concept keep recurring. Under the Belfast Agreement, Stormont and the Oireachtas have established a 48-member North-South Interparliamentary Association and can consider creating a North-South consultative civic forum.