The Failed Promises of the Belfast Agreement
by Nicola Grant
The Good Friday Agreement was signed on April 10th 1998 and was decisively endorsed by the people of Ireland in the referendums in May of that year. Whilst it was great news, and the Workers Party worked hard throughout the process to ensure the yes vote that allowed for the establishment of Devolution, the Agreement was not everything we as a socialist party espoused and believed in. Indeed, by October of 1998 in the midst of deadlock over the issue of decommissioning, then Workers Party president, Tom French, told nationalists and unionists to stop "shadow-boxing" and "get on with what you were elected to do". He said "the two big sectarian power blocs" were engaged in charades over decommissioning and cross-Border bodies. "Once again the people of Northern Ireland are being treated as mere spectators and left on the political sideline."
Despite the continued shadow-boxing between the parties in the mandatory cross-sectarian coalition that the Agreement introduced, we were willing to give the peace process a chance.
The Workers Party at the time cautioned that the absence of bombs and bullets was not enough to secure a lasting peace. We supported and lobbied hard for the agreement because of the promises contained within it. The Bill of Rights which the Workers Party had championed from the earliest days of the Civil Rights Movement. The inclusion of Integrated Education. The promise of Equality Legislation that coupled with a bill of rights would move the rights of all citizens on to an equal footing, instead of a zero-sum game.
The Workers Party hope was that we were in a transition that would lead to the creation a normal political landscape. That elections would be conducted and won on policies that benefited the working-class people who are the majority in Northern Ireland instead of orange and green coat trailing. Those hopes have been shattered repeatedly with the many collapses of the institutions when the only thing that continued unabated was the salaries of the MLAs and their advisors
Where are all the jobs that were promised? Where is our Bill of Rights? and all other things that the agreement promised to the people of Northern Ireland. What was achieved for most citizens? The answer to that question must be nothing substantial. In the two and a half decades since devolution only two Programmes for Government have been produced and everything within them has been nothing more than aspirational. We’ve got no Anti-Poverty Strategy, no Bill of Rights, no plans to tackle health and other inequalities, no public house building programme, and no real push for Integrated education. In short, none of the promises that were made to the electorate have been delivered on.
Northern Ireland has some of the worst levels of poverty in Western Europe and some of the worst areas of multiple deprivations and health inequalities. It is also prey to low and precarious employment, unmet housing needs, and fuel poverty. Our health and education systems are in crisis and our politicians would seem to be ignoring any of these conditions and are instead still fighting tribal wars and pursuing their own vested interests. Shame on them for their failure to deliver on the promises of hope and a better future for our children and grandchildren.