Peace Process & the media

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Kevin Rafter
on July 28, 2008
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From The Sunday Tribune, 26 July 2008

In November 1995, I travelled with Tommie Gorman from Dublin to the Fanad peninsula in Co Donegal. We were attending the funeral of Neil T Blaney, the former Fianna Fáil minister and longtime republican independent politician. I had written a short biography of Blaney a couple of years previously. But at the time, I was still learning my trade as a journalist in the RTÉ newsroom. Gorman had established a reputation as a hardworking correspondent in the northwest region, and by 1995, he was RTÉ’s Europe editor. Some years later, he would swap Brussels for Belfast to become the national broadcaster’s Northern editor.

 I was reminded of that day in November 1995 as I read Ed Moloney’s comments on speculation that Gorman played a role of sorts in the Northern Ireland peace process. There has been persistent talk that Gorman facilitated contacts between the DUP and Sinn Féin prior to the establishment of power-sharing at Stormont in May 2007. Gorman has previously denied a role. But both Bertie Ahern and Jonathan Powell, a long-time senior advisor to Tony Blair, had referred to the involvement of the RTÉ journalist.  Moloney contends – if it is true – that Gorman crossed an ethical line, and that the implications for Irish journalism are far-reaching. I am not so sure.

 There was a huge turnout on the bitter winter’s day when Blaney was laid to rest at the small graveyard at St Columba’s Church. In a graveside oration, another former Fianna Fáil minister, Kevin Boland, spoke of betrayal: “Blaney is gone. There is no nationalist, no republican voice in the parliament of the 26-county state. And there is no principle in it, either.” Given all that has happened in Northern Ireland over the past decade, Boland’s words are from another world now.

Martin McGuinness was among the funeral congregation. The IRA ceasefire of August 1994 was in place, but the British had not responded with the same speed as their counterparts in Dublin. Demands for decommissioning and the attachment of the word ‘permanent’ to the ceasefire were, in peace-process language, creating an impasse to the invitation of republicans to the talks table. Unknown to the wider world, there was a dynamic underway within the republican movement, and one which played out so dramatically with the Canary Wharf bombing some months later in February 2006.

Gorman had a relationship with McGuinness. As I understand it, respect for Gorman had been formed some years previously when both men, for different reasons, were in attendance at a local court hearing. As cases waited to be heard, a traveller woman was before the court on some minor charge. She was a mother of several children and it wasn’t her first appearance in court. “Is there someone here to go bail for this woman?” the judge asked. There was silence in the body of the court. Then, rather than see the woman go to jail with the inevitable consequences for her young family, Gorman stood and said he would go bail.

After the Blaney funeral on the road to Derry, we stopped at a café. McGuinness and his driver had already ordered tea. I had not met McGuinness before. He eyed me warily. He was a man under pressure. “What do you need?” Gorman asked. “Talks, Tommie. We need talks,” McGuinness replied. And after a pause, he bluntly added: “I could get a bullet in the head if this thing doesn’t start delivering.”

McGuinness may have relayed the same information at meetings with Irish government politicians and officials. I don’t know if Gorman passed on the conversation the next time he met a senior politician or minister. At that time, I wasn’t in a position to have such access. But if I had met an Irish government figure involved in the peace process, would I have passed on my observations? Yes.

I have interviewed Ed Moloney on many occasions. He is a journalist whose work I respect greatly. I agree with his contention that journalists must not take part in politics nor do anything that raises questions about their professional integrity. I would not, however, be so confident as to state that these principles are widely applied. Conflicts of interest are not always declared. And it is regrettable that the purity which Moloney seeks does not universally prevail. The idea of a register of interests for media professionals is certainly worthy of consideration.

But a more pertinent matter concerns the belief that the non-intervention of journalists in political matters is an all-embracing principle. I do not accept that political purity is so easily applicable – or always justifiable – in an area of conflict-resolution.

Is it really unethical for a journalist to make his home and counsel available to rival parties in a political conflict so they can secretly meet to resolve their differences? I would say the answer is no. And it is certainly not unethical if the consequences of non-intervention are that the two sides fail to reach agreement and a return of conflict is a possible outcome.

I like Gorman. Like most television reporters, he demands attention and is driven by a desire to get his story on screen. But he is also motivated by tremendous compassion. And if he did play some small role in the latter stages of the peace process – describe it as being a player, if you like – then it was probably because moral responsibility overruled any ethical principle of the journalism profession.

Sarkozy & Lisbon II

Published
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Kevin Rafter
on July 21, 2008
in Politics and Sunday Tribune
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Published in The Sunday Tribune, 20 July 2008

Nicolas Sarkozy was correct. If Ireland is to remain part of the European Union then we must hold a second referendum on the Lisbon treaty. The way forward is already very clear. The text of the Lisbon treaty is not going to be changed. The option to maintain a commissioner per member state will be exercised. After that, a variety of political clarifications will be offered to ease the diverse Irish concerns about protecting our identity, safeguarding our neutrality and maintaining the independence of our corporate taxation system. We will either have to accept these clarifications and pass Lisbon or else a second rejection will herald the start of a fundamental change in our membership of the EU. Sarkozy was merely stating the obvious last week.
And there is nothing anti-democratic about being asked to vote again. The consequences from the decision last month are too serious not to allow an opportunity for reconfirmation. A case of asking the people: “Are you sure about this?” Indeed, the turnout in the referendum was not so great – nor was the margin of victory for the No side so wide – that the result should be allowed to stand alone. We have had seven referendums about European matters since the decision was taken by the people to join the then EEC in 1973. In three of the seven referendums the turnout was higher than in the Lisbon poll. And interestingly the margin between the Yes and the No side in the Lisbon poll was actually slightly less than the margin in the Nice I referendum.

So before we start plotting a future based on the recent Lisbon referendum we should be certain about our choice. Holding another would be a good decision. In fact, I am not clear why we have to wait until next spring for a second vote. We know what is on the table, so why not vote again in the autumn? If we vote No a second time we will signal a desire to redefine our relationship within the EU. If that is the outcome then so it is.

But the next time everyone needs to be fully aware of the consequences of staying at home and opting out from the fundamental decision at stake, and also the consequences of voting No.

The government does not yet, in public that is, accept Sarkozy’s analysis. They are moving at a much slower pace. Micheal Martin has just commissioned market research on our attitudes to the EU and the reasoning why we voted as we did in the Lisbon referendum. But the results will probably not be much different from the outcome of a Gallup survey undertaken in the aftermath of the referendum last month. The majority of Yes voters saw the treaty as good for Irish interests. There was greater diversity on the No side with 22% of respondents citing a lack of information as influencing their choice.

It’s an amazing statistic given the level of debate and the amount of information available in the weeks prior to the referendum. But then perhaps people really are dumber than they think they are.  This Homer Simpson reality is the central thesis of a new book which has been bedside reading for politicians including Barak Obama and David Cameron. Brian Cowen and the others on the Yes side should add it to their summer holiday reading list. Believe me, Nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness from two US academics, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, is actually a pacy read.

The duo are not your typical college boffins. During the Bill Clinton impeachment hearings Sunstein once turned up on CNN accompanied by his pet dog, Perry. He was in the news here earlier this month when he got married in Ireland to Samantha Power, the foreign policy specialist who left the Obama campaign after branding Hillary Clinton “a monster” and who has joined the Sunday Tribune as a regular columnist.

Sunstein and Thaler contend that people fail when it comes to evaluating complicated issues. “People often make poor choices – and look back at them with bafflement!” the authors conclude. “We do this because as human beings, we all are susceptible to a wide array of routine biases that can lead to an equally wide array of embarrassing blunders in education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credits cards, and even the planet itself.”

We should eat more fruit. We should have a pension plan. We should recycle. But many of us don’t. According to Thaler and Sunstein the reality is that we don’t like being told how to live even if what we’re being told is actually good for us. We resist. Just like Homer Simpson. And, like Homer, people do silly things knowing them to be wrong. We pay for magazine subscriptions long after the introductory three-month free trial period has expired and we buy lottery tickets knowing the chances of winning are slim.

Applying the Sunstein-Thaler thesis to the referendum outcome allows the Lisbon result to be viewed as a snap judgment taken without consideration of the consequences. The conclusion in Nudge is that policy makers need to gently guide people to make better choices. And that is especially so when people are faced with a decision that is difficult and complex – that is when a gentle nudge is a really good idea. 

The Gallup survey already shows that many people were confused. So they moved with the herd even when they had no coherent or rational motivation for rejecting the treaty. If this is true then Cowen, Kenny and Gilmore had better start nudging fast because Sarkozy has called our situation as it is. As Homer would say, “Doh.”

RECESSION or downturn?

Published
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Kevin Rafter
on June 29, 2008
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The use of the word “recession” in the opening paragraph of the ESRI’s latest quarterly economic summary should provide enough room for the pundits - qualified and unqualified - to keep talking right through the normally barrow summer silly-season. 

The media rush to recall the 1980s has been given license by a looseness in the ESRI’s introduction of the R-word. The ESRI summary actually stated: “we are now forecasting a contraction in the economy in 2008, with both GNP and GDP falling by 0.4 per cent in real terms. Thus Ireland will experience a recession for the first time since 1983. For 2009, we expect an upturn with real GNP expected to grow by 1.9  per cent and real GDP expected to grow by 2 per cent.”

The ESRI forecast if it comes true will allow the word recession into the economic vocabulary for 2008. But by 2009 the ESRI forecast is that the Irish economy will be growing again, although at much lower levels than the growth of the boom years.

So we’ve half way through this recession already. Put another way the recession is almost over. The 1980s this is not. The harbingers of doom - and most economists - get excited by recessionary talk but comparisons with the 1980s are literally off-the-wall. The past is another country. And this is a different economy from two decades ago with greater levels of wealth today, more productive infrastructure and  lower, stable interest rates arising from our Euro zone membership.  

There is no denying tough decisions have to be made by government. But the budgetary intervention will be nothing like the decade long cutbacks in basic services in the 1980s. A recession, but not as we’ve know it. And those commenting on economic affairs should know better with their talk about a RECESSION when what we’re experiencing is at worst, a recession, and at best, a downturn.

 

Leonard Cohen & why the EU needs a holiday

Published
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Kevin Rafter
on June 17, 2008
in Politics
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Saturday evening. Royal Hospital Kilmainham. No getting away from the referendum result. Even in the company of Leonard Cohen. Seventy three years old, moving with grace and still gifted with a golden voice. An icon. A poet. And what a version of Hallelujah. “I’ve told the truth. I didn’t come to fool you.”  And there was much more. “Everybody knows that the good guys lost.” Cohen walked these streets half a century ago in search of the inspiration of Yeats and Joyce. Last weekend he returned and remarked how we had had our vote, and that Ireland was still bewildering the world. Bewildering, indeed. And now the politicians and the pundits will fill the airwaves and the column inches. If most people were disengaged from the referendum campaign - god help them now. But beware the harbingers of instant conclusions. We have the outcome. It is time to pause. There was no single reason for the rejection of the referendum. Victory is spread thin.  

The detail in Lisbon hardly deserved the title, ‘Treaty’. What was agreed by the six founding member states in Rome was a Treaty. The agreement at Maastricht which gave birth to the single currency was a Treaty. In comparison, Lisbon was administrative. And the debate that now develops should coldly and cautiously consider the consequences of the Irish referendum. The EU is bigger than Lisbon. Over 60 years of peace, and many of those years marked by economic progress and stability. It is not a bad record. And it would be a tall order for the much mentioned ‘new EU’ to match, not to mind surpass. 

The European Union has been the single biggest positive influence on Irish life in my lifetime. Overstatement - no. Anyone who left college and/or came onto the job market in the mid-1990s benefited from the warm glow of the nascent economic boom. The EU has to take a bow for what became the Celtic Tiger. Success has many parents but the cohesion and structural funds pushed Ireland forward. Investment in infrastructure, money spent in education. And then interest rate stability came from our membership of the Euro zone.  

Somehow in recent months we seem to have forgotten the good that is the European Union; and the good that is Irish membership of this club of individual states. We have had a voice as an equal. And still there has been recognition of particular national concerns in areas like abortion laws and military neutrality.  

I thought the referendum would be carried, narrowly. I gave too much credit to the Fianna Fail organisation wanting to deliver a positive result for the party’s new leader. (It is an interesting side-story but what of the FF machine?) I was wrong. A majority of those who voted rejected Lisbon. But they were not asked to decide on withdrawing from the EU. The union will survive the result.  Talk of crisis should be replaced by a flight to the beaches. The EU should now take the summer off. What happens next can wait for the autumn. That man, Mr Cohen again: “Looks like freedom but it feels like death. It’s something in between, I guess.”

 

 

 

Protesting Ireland

Published
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Kevin Rafter
on June 11, 2008
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The man representing the fishermen was furious that only a junior minister was available to meet with their lobby group. They were preparing to end their protest until they discovered that a cabinet minister would not be attending their grievance meeting. But why stop at any cabinet minister? Why didn’t they look to meet the Taoiseach? Under ambition, perhaps, or maybe just plain arrogance. They had no right to demand to eyeball the minister of their choice. And they had no right to block entry to ports and harbours. The only place to air grievances is across the talks table. The government should not easily pay heed to such hard bargaining protests. Give in to one group and others will come calling. The hauliers are next. 

Daniel Lanois, Dublin

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Kevin Rafter
on June 3, 2008
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Daniel Lanois and Brian Blade dazzled in Dublin last Saturday night. Lanois is again involved in the latest U2 album which has entered its final weeks in the studio although this time round the Canadian and Brian Eno are involved to a level that U2 has expanded to a six-member band.

Pic Credit: GREG HENKENHAF/SUN MEDIA

So last weekend was timeout for Lanois with his documentary Here Is What Is viewing at the Irish Film Institute. Ahead of the film Lanois took to the stage accompanied by Blade on drums for an hour of magic. The longtime collaborators work their instruments like painters creating art on canvas - Blade moving his drumsticks as brushes to produce amazing sounds while Lanois seamlessly moved from pounding to caressing the guitar strings. The combined result was a powerful hour dominated by instrumentals but with several excellent Lanois compositions especially The Maker. Adam Clayton was in the audience and his presence was acknowledged by Lanois with reference to recent studio debates about where songs start and end. The documentary which followed the concert - great venue for both - is marked by numerous surreal interludes featuring Brian Eno - some of his dialogue turns up on the cd accompanying the documentary. But the film scores best in a section with Lanois working on a track in the studio control room. Bob Dylan devoted a large chunk of his Chronicles book to the recording of the Oh Mercy album which Lanois produced. Seeing him at the production desk in the film reveals much about what he’s done for Dylan, US and many others. “Production mixing” he calls his work but to see him use the desk as an instrument is to observe the artist at work. Well work a watch while the album features several tracks of genuine beauty.

Lisbon Treaty debate

Published
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Kevin Rafter
on June 3, 2008
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Over the last couple of months I have chaired various meetings on the Lisbon Treaty. The latest today was for the European Movement Ireland. The organisation has had the novel idea of taking the referendum debate into the office place - meetings held at lunchtimes in companies like Google with speakers from the two sides making their pitch at the hour long sessions. About thirty staff in Barclays in Dublin ignored the sunshine today to hear from Dick Roche and Declan Walsh from the yes side and Joe Higgins and Caroline Simons from the no side. The meetings was held in the staff canteen and Higgins joked that it was the furthest he had ever got into the capitalist beast. Given that he wants to nationalise the banking system Higgins got a good reaction from those present. Questions focused on taxation, the alternative to Lisbon and what happens in the event of rejection of the referendum. 

The merit of the exercise was that most of those in the audience were unattached to the main referendum groups - a collection of undecided voters. The discussion picked up on a subject I wrote about the Sunday Tribune a few weekends ago: the assertion that not enough information is available to make a considered decision on how to vote in the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The fact is that never before has so much information been so readily available. There is a wealth of material on various websites. And, for the last few weeks, various organisations from the EU Commission to the Forum on Europe, to the Libertas lobby group have been organising public meetings across the country. The proponents of the treaty and its critics have done a decent job in putting their views into the public domain. Those who have not taken the time to consider the arguments simply mask their own laziness with complaints about the complexity of the treaty or their confusion about the issues at stake. The spoon-fed generation is unwilling to take the time to think about the referendum. They want a fastfood solution for the ballot box without having to engage in any independent thought.

The basic content in the Lisbon Treaty is fairly straightfoward. The powers of the EU are being increased in some areas but decreased in others. If the treaty is passed, the European parliament will have a new role in making laws and overseeing the EU budget.

National parliaments will also have a new role in overseeing EU law. There are proposals to change the workings of the EU Council with a new voting system. New figurehead positions are proposed including a President of the EU Council and a High Representative for Foreign Affairs. Legal status is proposed for the Charter of Fundamental Rights which covers areas like the right to equality and a fair trial.

There are obviously very different opinions about, and interpretations of, the implications of these measures. The main political parties are urging a yes vote. Sinn Fein and a variety of lobby groups want the treaty rejected. There are merits to the arguments on both sides. The responsibility of voters is to consider the content of the treaty, access the arguments of the respective sides and then come to a considered judgement. That is not too much to ask. People make decisions about aspects of their lives every day and nearly always without 100% information. So take the time to consider the issues. And then vote.

 

Farewell to a remarkable & lucky Taoiseach

Published
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Kevin Rafter
on May 2, 2008
in Politics
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“TAOISEACH John Bruton has announced his intention to step down as Taoiseach on 7 May 2008. Mr Bruton, who first became Taoiseach in December 1994, has led Ireland during a period of unprecedented economic growth which also heralded the creation of a new relationship with Northern Ireland. He was the first leader of Fine Gael to be returned to office winning general election successes in 1997, 2002 and again last year. In that period, he saw off Bertie Ahern as Fianna Fail leader while Ahern’s successor Charlie McCreevy has thus far failed to lead his party back to power following its longest ever stretch in opposition.” 

A scenario from the world of fantasy politics, yes. But, with the distance of time, when the history of the Ahern era is fully written, a key question to be answered will be, just how did Ahern emerge from the 1997 general election as Taoiseach. Or put another way, how did Bruton’s three-party Rainbow coalition fail to win?

Bruton came to power in late 1994 after a period of political turmoil involving Fianna Fail and the Labour Party. The Albert ReynoldsDick Spring arrangement had been riven at a senior level by personality differences and policy disputes although, it has to be said, more of the former than the latter.

Fianna Fail’s second attempt at participating in a coalition government ended in controversy and left a lingering doubt over the party’s ability to deal with a minor partner. Bruton’s new government restored political stability. In a few short years, Ireland became the fastestgrowing economy in Europe.

The statistics are worth recalling: GNP was 2.6% in 1993 but hit 9% in 1997; the unemployment rate was 15.5% in 1993 but by 1997 had fallen to 9.8%; the general government balance moved from a deficit of . . .2.2% in 1993 to a surplus of 1% in 1997.

There are many who claim credit for contributing to the birth of the so-called Celtic Tiger but the facts show the boom really took off during the Bruton regime. Yet, when the votes were counted and the seats were distributed in 1997, the Fine Gael-LabourDemocratic Left side had 75 TDs. Ahern’s Fianna Fail had 77 seats which, when combined with four Progressive Democrat TDs and the support of some independent deputies, was enough to oust Bruton from office. Last week in the Dail chamber, as tributes were paid to Ahern for his 11-year tenure as Taoiseach, Eamon Gilmore recalled the circumstances in which the Fianna Fail leader came to power: “It is not in any way to underestimate your subsequent achievements to state you were in many respects a lucky Taoiseach who came to office at a time of remarkable opportunity.”

Ahern was certainly lucky in 1997. His time as leader of the opposition had not convinced. It is forgotten now but his Dail performances were patchy and his opinion poll satisfaction ratings were unspectacular. So Bruton lost, and Ahern won . . . but how? With a conservative budget prior to the 1997 election, the Rainbow threw away their trump card on the economy. Fianna Fail also presented a clearer message on income taxation.

But, more importantly, during the election campaign Ahern wooed the voters.

Fianna Fail built a campaign around his personality. And the voters fell in love with ‘Bertie’. Even Sylvester Stallone, at the opening of the Planet Hollywood restaurant on St Stephen’s Green, took off his jacket and draped it across Ahern’s shoulders. At that moment the celebrity politician was born. And Ahern never looked back.

The man with the complicated private life . . . played out in public . . . moved seamlessly from the political columns to the gossip pages, and back again. He comfortably popped up as a pundit with Eamon Dunphy on The Premiership. He raised smiles . . . and expletives from his opponents . . . with his talk of tending to hanging baskets, cooking a bit of fish at the end of a working day and naming his favourite song as ‘How much is that doggy in the window?’.

And with a popstar for a son-in-law and a chick-lit novelist as a daughter, he built a celebrity profile around ‘Being Bertie’. In September 2006, on the day the first story about his controversial personal finances appeared in public, I was with Ahern in Co Clare. In public houses, hotels and schools . . . even at the opening of a women’s clothing shop . . . the public wanted to meet their Taoiseach. They wanted to shake his hand and have their photograph taken with him. At several functions, photographs from his previous visits adorned the walls. He continually brought his fame into their lives and, in return, sufficient numbers rewarded him with three successful electoral outcomes.

Northern Ireland will remain his greatest achievement. Only in the years to come will we properly judge if enough was achieved with the economic largesse of the boom years.

And more time again will be needed . . . and assessments required from those not so close to contemporary events . . . to judge the real impact of the money revelations. I have been consistently critical of his behaviour in accepting that money, but any judgements in that sphere should not take from the fact that Ahern was, and remains, a remarkable politician.

But he was also a lucky one. 

OECD recommends an Irish property tax, again.

Published
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Kevin Rafter
on April 21, 2008
in Politics and Sunday Tribune
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Full marks to the OECD for perseverance. The international policy organisation continues to tell a few home truths about the Irish economy. It has done so now for several decades. But governments of different hues have selectively picked the reasonable advice and, politely, ignored the difficult bits. There is little confidence that the latest OECD report issued last week will be treated any differently, especially in relation to property taxation.

The housing market may have paused but that is not an excuse for avoiding a debate on the merits of a new tax on property. Indeed, a very good case can be made for a properly constructed tax on non-primary residences. All those holiday homes and investment apartments accumulated in recent years would be included. The population-wide benefits from such an initiative would be considerable. There would be more money for public services and even a reduction in taxes on labour. But the universal public benefit from such an undertaking never gets an airing as, unfortunately, politicians listen most to the concerns of middle-class voters.

Pat Kenny’s legal case showed the Irish fascination with land. Equally, we have a poor record of taxing land and property. Three different forms of property taxation have existed in the Irish tax code, and each was eventually abolished. The most recent, residential property tax (RPT), was in place from 1983 to 1997. In his budget speech in 1994, then finance minister Bertie Ahern made great assertions about shifting the tax burden from income to other areas including property. His action, however, was to make very minor changes to RPT.

Ahern’s measures were aimed at increasing the annual RPT yield by about £5m to £14m. Almost 36,500 house owners paid RPT in 1994 . . . just under 15% of all households. These minor changes, however, generated irrational media and public debate as well as an opportunistic political response. The controversy said much about where power lies in Irish society.

The RPT tax had a disproportionate affect on a small but vocal group of people with relatively high-priced houses and incomes. This middle-class group was the only response category in a post-budget opinion poll which showed a strong ‘harmful’ effect from the RPT. In 1995 nearly one in five of all RPT taxpayers were located in the Dublin 2 and Dublin 4 postal districts. These areas contain some of the most expensive residential properties in the state and coincided with the Dublin South East constituency of Michael McDowell, the PD spokesman who led the post-1994 campaign seeking to abolish the tax.

None of the Leinster House parties came well out of the RPT debacle. Fianna Fail and Labour in government bungled the changes. In opposition, Fine Gael, the PDs and Democratic Left exploited the controversy. Enda Kenny was at his colourful best in responding in the Dail to the 1994 changes. “All Irish people believe that a man’s house is his castle. It is morally unjust and unfair to tax a person’s homef [This tax] reminds me of a vampire tax in that it drives a stake through the heart of home initiative, and sucks the life blood of people who want to own their own home.” The reality was very different. But politicians never let the facts get in the way of an intelligent argument.

What the OECD failed to acknowledge in its latest report is that there is still no analytical or ideological framework in Ireland for considering the value of property taxation. Perhaps the cause might be taken up by the new commission on taxation.

From Sunday Tribune, 20 April 2008

George Mitchell & multi-party talks

Published
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Kevin Rafter
on April 7, 2008
in Sunday Tribune
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Edited version of Irish Review article which appeared in Sunday Tribune, 6 April 2008.

THE involvement of senator George Mitchell in securing peace in Northern Ireland has been widely acknowledged. “I think that anybody who knows anything about the hours he has had to sit and spend listening to us squabbling and arguing must give him good credit, ” Reg Empey of the Ulster Unionists has said. Mitchell brought a unique perspective to the Northern Ireland talks but his participation also points to the key role a peace talks chairperson can make in assisting the transition from conflict to peace. Mitchell was an independent chairman and that allowed him achieve a degree of neutrality between the various parties. There was Ulster Unionist suspicion about his involvement and outright hostility from the DUP.

Indeed, there is deep irony that Ian Paisley, who opted out of the process and initially sought to undermine the agreement, is now . . . a decade later . . . the principal figurehead in the institutional framework shaped in the Mitchellchaired negotiations.

Progress at the talks was slow. The negotiations only got serious as a Mitchellimposed deadline loomed in April 1998. The final week involved serious compromise by the main participants. Mitchell was not without his moments of despair at the historic grievances between the two communities in Northern Ireland. Tony Blair’s advisor, Alastair Campbell, records in his diaries on 8 April 1998 bumping into Mitchell on the corridor: “He looked pretty fed up too. He said he felt we were living through a Greek tragedy.”

Mitchell as chairman instilled confidence in the process, he focused the parties on the need to compromise and he was realistic about what the settlement deal could achieve in the short term. “The implementation of this agreement will take a very long time . . . there will be dozens of crises and all kinds of ways in which opponents can create difficulty, ” he observed.

The agreement was eventually signed on 12 April 1998 and a number of important lessons from Mitchell’s involvement can be identified:

(1) Confidence in process Alongside the symbolism of having the US administration involved, Mitchell’s presence in Belfast was also important for the personal qualities of patience and understanding which he brought to the peace process. Mitchell’s initial observations about the negativity that surrounded politics in Northern Ireland are reflective of the environment in most conflict societies.

“I was struck, throughout my three years in Northern Ireland, by the pessimism of the people. I can’t tell you how many times, maybe hundreds, people would come up to me on the street, at the airport, in a restaurant, wherever I happened to be, almost always very politely, almost always quite complimentary, ‘Thank you senator, we really appreciate what you are doing. We know you’re working hard. You’re making a great sacrifice.’ Then, always at the end, ‘But you are wasting your time. This problem can’t be solved. We are doomed to conflict here forever.’ A sort of dark belief that nothing good could ever happen.” Mitchell’s quiet patience was wrapped in a steely determination to succeed.

(2) Win-Win The Mitchell formula in Belfast was marked out by the US politician’s experience garnered from years on Capitol Hill in Washington. He had learnt the value of compromise, and not seeing concession that led to progress as a defeat.

“Ireland’s whole history and culture is one of ‘I win, you lose’. There is no such thing as what we Americans call a ‘win-win situation’.

Everything is played out as in a zero-sum game. With every decision made, if one side likes it, then the other side, by definition, will dislike it. When someone wins something, there is no such thing as the magnanimous victor. It’s always, ‘Let me rub the other guy’s nose in it, if I can’ and ‘Let me poke a finger in his eye, if it is possible.’

This kind of thinking has created a provocative atmosphere, one of hostility and one intended to convey insult.”

(3) Time Mitchell did not specialise in idealised talk about what could be achieved at the multi-party talks. “There is no magic wand or formula you can take off the shelf and apply in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, the Middle East and other places. What is necessary to solve the problems in each of these places is patience, understanding and a desire to create a situation in which people can make an accommodation to live side by side.” In one very important respect, the US politician brought a practical approach to his position in the peace talks. In the months after the arrival of Sinn Fein at the negotiating table in September 1997, there was little obvious progress, with the main parties unwilling to indicate the areas where compromise and concession were possible.

Mitchell’s judgement in allowing the parties time to establish their respective positions was important as it emphasised the seriousness of his subsequent intervention in setting a deadline for the conclusion of the process. In the week in which many tributes are paid to Bertie Ahern for his efforts in securing peace, it is appropriate that we recall one of the other key participants in the process.