An absence of power sharing at Stormont is “very unsatisfactory”, former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern has said as he urged the DUP to reach a compromise.
He argued the unionist party’s rigid stance was neither tenable nor sustainable and not in the interests of Northern Ireland.
Speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, Mr Ahern praised Rishi Sunak’s efforts to restore the devolved institutions as he argued it had been “very difficult” for Dublin to deal with Boris Johnson during Brexit.
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He made his comments as commemorations continued in Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the historic peace deal, of which he was one of the architects.
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement largely signalled an end to the deadly violence of the Troubles and established power sharing.
The institutions are currently suspended as part of a boycott by the DUP against post-Brexit trading arrangements that created economic barriers between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
The UK and Brussels agreed a revamped deal known as the Windsor Framework, aimed at tackling the difficulties caused by the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol.
However, the DUP has argued problems remain and the latest agreement still leaves the region subject to EU rules.
It meant there was no functioning administration during the recent visit by US President Joe Biden, which Mr Ahern described as a “big own goal”.
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Mr Ahern told Sky News: “The institutions not being up and running is very unsatisfactory.”
He added: “Politics is the art of compromise.
“You do not make much progress in politics if you don’t do that.
“And I think we have to get away from, you know, this is the position and no other position is satisfactory, it’s not tenable or sustainable.
“And it’s not in the interests of the people in Northern Ireland, there are huge issues in Northern Ireland as there is everywhere else.”
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Mr Ahern contrasted Mr Sunak’s approach with that taken by Mr Johnson.
He said: “To be honest, it doesn’t really matter to me who the prime minister of the United Kingdom is, that’s a matter for the United Kingdom, but you will appreciate that we found it very difficult to deal with Boris.
“He seems to be a very colourful guy and a very nice guy but, you know, we had the trouble with the backstop, we had trouble with the protocol, we had a lot of trouble with Brexit in the first place.
“Quite frankly, I don’t think we would have had the institutions in Northern Ireland down on and off for the last six or seven years if it hadn’t been for Brexit and it’s caused us untold difficulties and problems.
“But we try in Ireland to live in the future and we try and get on with things and, you know, I think what we now need to do is Rishi Sunak as prime minister, he has really done a good job in our estimation here in the last six months, he has invigorated the efforts to get everything working in Northern Ireland.”
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Mr Ahern will be among those attending a major conference in Belfast, starting on Monday, to mark 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement.
Other guests include Mr Sunak, Sir Tony Blair, former US senator George Mitchell, who helped broker the landmark deal, and Bill Clinton, who was US president in 1998.
