Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The British Government recently stated that it will introduce legislation in Westminster in the coming weeks that will alter what it agreed in the protocol. The protocol is part of an international agreement that it signed with the EU in an effort, they both stated, to protect the Good Friday Agreement. Unilaterally altering the protocol will have the opposite effect. It will undermine the Good Friday Agreement. Businesses are benefiting from the significant opportunities afforded by the protocol to create jobs and attract investment through unique access to the British and EU markets. The majority of MLAs returned to Stormont after the recent assembly election support retaining the protocol.

The British Government should stop creating further instability, end the threats to take unilateral action and work constructively with the EU to find solutions to fix any problems. It is handing the DUP a veto on progress. The DUP is using the protocol as an excuse not to enter power-sharing and has blocked the appointment of a new speaker to the assembly, preventing it from releasing funds already in place to help people with the cost-of-living crisis. Abrogating an international treaty, as US Congressman Richard Neal stated yesterday, is not only bad faith, it sends a considerably wrong message.

As regards legacy protocols, it seems that international agreements do not garner much, if any, respect from this British Government. Its most recent legacy proposals are yet another attempt to bin an international agreement to which it signed up, in this case at Stormont House in 2014. These proposals are another cruel blow to victims and their families, some of whom have been awaiting truth and justice for more than five decades. It is an attempt by the British state to pull down the shutters on truth and justice. The British Government is effectively attempting to introduce an amnesty through the back door for British state forces, intelligence services and agents who murdered Irish citizens during the conflict in Ireland. These proposals are opposed by victims, their families and political parties. The Irish Government must stand with the families in their campaigns for truth and justice.

Looking back at the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement or, more to the point, the many aspects of the agreement that have never been implemented, should we be so surprised at the pandering of the British Government to hardline unionism and itslaissez-faireattitude to international agreements?: The Good Friday Agreement was signed on 10 April 1998. It has just passed its 24th year. That period could have been used to fulfil the significant expectations generated by the agreement and its endorsement in referendums North and South. However, 24 years on, it is very frustrating that a bill of rights - a central provision of the agreement - has never been implemented. A bill of rights was a central provision of the agreement. A recent survey carried out by the Human Rights Consortium at Queens University Belfast indicated significant cross-community support for a bill of rights, with 78% of participants backing such a proposal. Attempts to create a bill of rights, however, have been dogged by delays, as well as efforts to minimise the scope and enforcement. In early 2020, an assembly committee was established under the New Decade, New Approach agreement to look at finally delivering on a bill of rights. As part of this process, an expert panel of external consultants was to be appointed to advise the committee. However, the DUP has continually prevented the appointment of the panel, effectively grinding the process to a halt once again.

Another integral part of the Good Friday Agreement committed the British Government to taking resolute action to promote the Irish language and to seek to remove, where possible, restrictions that would discourage or work against the maintenance and development of the language. Further to these provisions, a specific commitment to an Irish language Act was to be introduced by the British Government as part of the St. Andrews Agreement in 2006. This, too, has never been implemented. It was again committed to in New Decade, New Approach. With the DUP again failing to live up to what it had agreed to, the British Government promised to deliver on the commitment to an Irish language Act with accelerated passage by October 2021. That date passed without delivery or any credible defence from the British Government. With the DUP refusing to nominate a deputy First Minister and form an Executive, we hear once again that the British Government plans to legislate for an Irish language Act imminently. Time will tell but if Acht na Gaeilge remains undelivered, that will represent another serious breach of yet another agreement by the DUP and the British Government.

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