The Good Friday Agreement Ten Years On via ElBlogador.com- The Voice of Irish Nationalism
A decade has passed since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, and things have changed utterly since then for the people of Northern Ireland. Of course, they could have changed a lot earlier had the extremists now in power endorsed the Sunningdale Agreement in the 1970s, but the track record of those slow-learners is now the stuff of the history books.I read Peter Robinson in the News Letter the other day pouring cold water on the Good Friday Agreement, claiming it was a failure. In reality, of course, today's Assembly and governmental institutions are based almost wholly on the 1998 document. The St Andrews Agreement was nothing more than a stage show, a mere poor imitation of the Good Friday Agreement organised at the taxpayers' expense to give the impression that the DUP and Sinn...
The SDLP, having weighed up what was on offer in the budget against its serious shortcomings, voted against it- fair play to them. Margaret Ritchie stood firm in the face of the DUP/ SF axis bullying tactics and managed to squeeze extra money from them for much-needed social housing. However, it remains an essentially right-wing, anti-community budget. There is of course the lack of detail on water reform and education, and by the recent performance of Nigel Dodds with regard to the abolition of relief for the installation of energy efficient measures, the two big parties cannot be trusted to deliver unless they spell out exactly what they are intending to do.Some people don't seem to be able to get their heads around the concept that the SDLP are in the Executive as a right, not because...