BELFAST, (Reuters) – Northern Ireland’s power-sharing administration was on the brink of collapse yesterday after a murder linked to the IRA plunged the province towards the gravest crisis since a 1998 peace deal ended years of sectarian violence.
In a day of high drama in Northern Ireland, First Minister Peter Robinson stepped aside with all but one of his unionist party allies, a step that leaves the power sharing agreement between Catholic Irish nationalists and their Protestant rivals hanging by a thread.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he was gravely concerned about the crisis which erupted when gunmen linked to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) opened fire on a former member, Kevin McGuigan, outside his Belfast home last month.
Police suspect members of the IRA, a paramilitary group that is supposed to have disbanded, were involved in the killing. Bobby Storey, a senior member of Sinn Fein, the largest Irish nationalist party, was arrested in relation to the killing and released yesterday without charge.
“The continued existence of the IRA and the arrests that followed has pushed devolution to the brink,” First Minister Robinson said as he announced he was stepping aside.
“The fact that a leading member, or leading members, of Sinn Fein have been associated with a murder indicates to us very clearly that those are unacceptable circumstances and we cannot do business as usual.”
The 1998 power-sharing deal ended three decades of tit-for-tat killings between Catholic Irish nationalists, who want the province to unite with Ireland and Protestant unionists, who want to remain part of the United Kingdom, that left 3,600 dead. The forced coalition has struggled amid intensifying sectarian bickering in recent years and talks that began this week to try to settle a string of crises are set to resume on Monday.
Both the Irish government and Sinn Fein said they would return to the negotiating table to try to find a solution.
“BAD DAY”
Few expect a return to the armed conflict of the so-called “Troubles”, though Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein has previously warned a stalemate would “create a vacuum that would be exploited by violent elements on all sides”.
As he stepped aside, Robinson requested Britain suspend the province’s assembly, a move that could force London to take direct governance of Northern Ireland, though Cameron’s government said it did not support such a move and Sinn Fein warned doing so would shunt the province back to past. The last time the parliament was suspended, in 2002, it took five years for the rival parties from the two communities to agree to sit again. Robinson has warned that if talks fail this time, it could take a decade before parliament is revived.
