Mr. Rory Montgomery:

I tend to think the entire philosophy of constitutional nationalism inspired by John Hume and articulated in the New Ireland Forum of the 1980s, and extending all the way through the 1990s, was that there were two traditions, two identities, on the island of Ireland and a way needed to be found to reconcile them. Things were thought of very much in communal terms and that was a reflection of the reality. When one looks at the percentage of votes that unionists, nationalists and republicans got at the time, it was well into the 90s. This was effectively the political reality people were dealing with and the outcome was not, therefore, surprising. Again, there was a great fear on the nationalist side in particular about going back towards majoritarianism in Stormont. It was essential for nationalists to be able to demonstrate that they would be able to block any attempt by what was still a unionist majority to impose on them things that they did not want to have imposed. The situation has since changed immensely for various reasons. I do not know that the arrangements could have been much different at the time. That is the first point.

There were always critics from the middle ground and civil society who pointed out that this meant that those who did not wish to designate as one or the other were put in a somewhat inferior position. That is true. Mark Durkan referred to the "ugly scaffolding" of the agreement, which was an excellent phrase. For the reasons I outlined, the institutions did not get up and running properly in 1999 and 2000. The focus of the unionists on decommissioning meant the spotlight was totally on the republicans on the other side and this helped to weaken the SDLP and also helped to weaken the unionists against the DUP. When the DUP came in, it was on the basis that it was not really a partnership with Sinn Féin but about division of the spoils. That was the DUP philosophy. There is a provision in the agreement for a review but it was never used. If there had been a few uninterrupted years and things had worked more normally and harmoniously, it may have been possible some time in the earlier 2000s to have a proper review and begin to look at these issues and maybe changes could have been made incrementally as we went along, within the overall framework. That was not possible, however. It did not happen and, to be frank, I find it hard to see it happening now.