{"id":641574,"date":"2026-08-17T10:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T10:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/641574\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T10:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T10:16:14","slug":"its-a-mess-to-collapse-stormont-now-would-benefit-no-one-but-it-cannot-stay-the-same-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/641574\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s a mess\u2019: To collapse Stormont now would benefit no one, but it cannot stay the same \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

When people start asking if Stormont<\/a> is going to come down, something is up. <\/p>\n

This hitherto-dormant question has been reawakened in the North in recent weeks. It shows a concern born out of bitter experience: in the last 10 years Northern Ireland<\/a> has been without a devolved government for five of them. <\/p>\n

Hence, when Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s<\/a> Conor Murphy warned powersharing was in a \u201cprecarious place\u201d and there was \u201ca danger that the wheels could come off\u201d if the Stormont institutions were not reformed, that was interpreted in some quarters as a warning \u2013 or indeed a threat \u2013 that it was preparing to collapse Stormont. <\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, Murphy blamed the Democratic Unionist Party<\/a> (DUP) for \u201cfrustrating\u201d delivery; that party\u2019s leader, Gavin Robinson<\/a>, equally unsurprisingly, hit back, saying if Murphy was \u201cworried about his wheels coming off he should tighten his nuts\u201d and saying the DUP was \u201ccommitted\u201d to the institutions and \u201cdelivering\u201d. <\/p>\n

Business as usual: Sinn F\u00e9in blames the DUP for \u201cblocking\u201d legislation by abusing a veto mechanism and, in turn, the latter blames the former for \u201cover-commitments\u201d to projects such the A5 road upgrade.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Government must stop enabling Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s threats to Stormont<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Such is the instability of powersharing; all it takes is for one to walk away, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. <\/p>\n

Yet to do so now would serve neither party, as those recent suspensions, triggered by a Sinn F\u00e9in walkout in 2017 and the DUP in 2022, show. \u201cThere isn\u2019t any clear evidence that parties benefit,\u201d Jon Tonge, professor of politics at Liverpool University, says. <\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in is the largest party in the assembly and holds the post of First Minister. All it needs to do is hold its course and \u2013 barring any unforeseen disasters \u2013 it will retain both these positions in the election expected in May next year, not least given the challenges facing the DUP amid the fragmentation of the unionist vote and the fallout following the conviction of its former leader, Jeffrey Donaldson<\/a>, for child sex-abuse offences. <\/p>\n

With a little over six months until the Assembly is dissolved for the election anyway, as it stands Sinn F\u00e9in has nothing to gain from a collapse and has potentially much to lose. <\/p>\n

Hence the clarification by senior figures, including First Minister Michelle O\u2019Neill<\/a>, who told reporters last Wednesday: \u201cI have no intention of bringing Stormont down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nationalist commentator Chris Donnelly says: \u201cI don\u2019t see Stormont falling this side of an election, unless it\u2019s an unintended consequence \u2026 and it just escalates.\u201d <\/p>\n

So, Stormont stands \u2013 for the meantime, anyway \u2013 but in this renewed spotlight, what has been illuminated is that it is not working. <\/p>\n

Tonge reads Murphy\u2019s comments as \u201cexplaining to their own supporters why so little has been achieved\u201d. Call it underlying tensions, a spat or the usual Assembly blame game, \u201cwhat\u2019s always behind it is frustration that nothing is getting done of note, but that\u2019s true of any consociational powersharing system in the world\u201d, he says. Consociational is a term used to describe government being run by, for example, different ethnic or religious groups together. <\/p>\n

In the more than four years since the last Assembly election in 2022, Stormont has passed only 16 pieces of legislation. <\/p>\n

Northern Ireland is mired in financial crisis, the Executive is limping along without a budget and the only solution is to ask the UK government for more money. \u201cStormont is a mess, to be blunt,\u201d Donnelly says. <\/p>\n

Little wonder that the public in Northern Ireland has switched off from Stormont. Research by Liverpool University in 2024 showed only just over a quarter of people were satisfied with the performance of the Assembly or Executive; only 19 per cent were confident it would not collapse again. <\/p>\n

But most still believe in powersharing. The research showed 83 per cent believed it remained the best basis for governing Northern Ireland, but 57 per cent felt it required changes. <\/p>\n

What Sinn F\u00e9in understands \u2013 and what Murphy\u2019s comment reflects \u2013 is that the momentum is not towards collapse, but reform. <\/p>\n

Alliance<\/a> and the Social Democratic and Labour Party<\/a> have long been advocates, with Sinn F\u00e9in a more recent convert. Ulster Unionist Party<\/a> leader Jon Burrows is \u201copen\u201d to reform. The DUP\u2019s Robinson has emphasised the need for a change in culture over institutional reform. <\/p>\n

As the Northern Ireland think tank Pivotal said in June, \u201cthere is agreement that government is not delivering, but not about what to do about it\u201d or \u201chow or when discussions about reforms will be taken forward\u201d. <\/p>\n

Donnelly says: \u201cI think [Murphy] was in a cryptic way saying, \u2018We think there\u2019s trouble coming\u2019. I think he\u2019s right, but I just don\u2019t think it\u2019ll translate itself into trouble this side of the election.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Stormont institutions \u2013 and the Belfast Agreement<\/a> that created them, guaranteed by the Irish and British governments \u2013 are approaching their 30th anniversary. The lesson of history is that change in Northern Ireland tends to come from without and tends to come when Dublin and London are on the same page. <\/p>\n

In Belfast on August 6th, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> said the two governments \u201chave to work together to bring forward\u201d the necessary legislation to reform the institutions. <\/p>\n

He has pledged to raise it with his counterpart Andy Burnham<\/a>, a committed devolutionist who is due to make his first official visit to the North this month. <\/p>\n

Stormont may stay up, but it cannot stay the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When people start asking if Stormont is going to come down, something is up. This hitherto-dormant question has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[76188,37363,23936,9,10,31778,13,14,40332,6,41435,11,12,15,16,5765,34866,5,954,47,39895,51349,7,8,39896,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-641574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-alliance-party-of-northern-ireland","tag-andy-burnham","tag-belfast-agreement","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-democratic-unionist-party","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-gavin-robinson","tag-headlines","tag-jeffrey-donaldson","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-micheal-martin","tag-michelle-o-neill","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-sinn-fein","tag-social-democratic-and-labour-party","tag-stormont-assembly","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-ulster-unionist-party","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}