Good Friday Agreement review to be launched
A review of the Good Friday Agreement is to begin on January 29, Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has confirmed.
The review is expected to last for several months, at least until Easter.
Mr Ahern confirmed, “It is my view that the review should meet formally two days a week.”
All the parties to the Agreement will be involved, and Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy and Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen will meet later this month to finalise the plans.
Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists are all calling for a short, focused review – although each party has its own priorities for what that focus should be on.
However, Ian Paisley’s DUP, now the largest party in Northern Ireland, is demanding substantial changes to the Agreement.
The only other party calling for such changes is the non-sectarian Alliance Party, which yesterday proposed a return to devolved government on the voluntary coalition model employed in Scotland and Wales, rather than a power-sharing arrangement in which individual parties hold a veto on progress.
The high-level attention the review can expect is limited, however. Prime Minister Tony Blair is occupied with highly divisive domestic concerns, notably top-up fees and Foundation Hospitals, and is likely to face considerable political difficulties when the Hutton report into the death of Dr David Kelly is published later this month.
Mr Ahern, meanwhile, is currently president of the European Council and will have to offer leadership in the EU at a time of crisis, following the collapse of talks on the EU Constitution in December.
