8 November 2001 Edition
Contradictions of participating in Stormont
Martina Anderson from Derry, who was in jail for 13 years, mostly in Durham in England, and who now works at the Assembly, took an evening off last week to come up to Dublin to talk with a group of ex-prisoners and a number of young Sinn Féin activists about the political difficulties of working in Stormont.
Her talk was one in the ongoing Tar Isteach programme of discussions every Wednesday evening, which enables young Sinn Féin activists to meet and discuss with ex-prisoners and hear of their experiences during the years of conflict.
Martina spoke first about jail, and told of the amazing times at the start of the Peace Process, the ferment of ideas in the jail arising from regular delegations which came to visit the republican prisoners to discuss political developments in the struggle.
She talked of the historic meeting where hundreds of republican prisoners, men and women, gathered in Long Kesh to talk with the visiting South African delegation about their own peace process and the future of our own.
Martina is Sinn Féin's policy researcher at Stormont. She outlined the enormous burden which rests on those who work in Stormont to service the ten departments and the cross border implementation bodies.
Martina spoke of the huge voluntary work by supporters and experts in different fields in helping to brief Assembly members and ministers. She outlined the appalling difficulties faced by Ministers in dealing within the situation of collective cabinet ministerial responsibility, where ministers are not at liberty to organise and publicise their opposition.
She discussed the need to link with activists on the ground, so that political decisions and policies reflect the community, and involve party activists.
She talked of the constraints on budgets for our two ministers, who run the highest spending departments; how the budget constraints imposed by England on expenditure pose major problems and force upon our ministers policies which conflict with republican ideals for the new Ireland. Above all, she highlighted the failure, due to our lack of political strength, to overcome unionist resistance, backed by the SDLP, to set up a Department of Equality, and the hold-ups there have been in the development of the cross-border implementation bodies, which hold out the potential for the all-Ireland dimension.
Young people took up the question and discussed possiible ways of helping, including the possibility of instituting an intern programme to give students from Ógra Shinn Féin and university cumainn an awareness of the policy issues that arise in the work at Stormont and experience in dealing with briefs.
Many people at the meetings expressed their amazement that after so many years in jail Martina is still so heavily involved in the work of the movement. In her unassuming way she explained succinctly that she had always intended to become reinvolved after jail, that although "work in Stormont was harder than active service" it was work that needed to be done.
It was a remarkable exchange between the different generations of activists, all thinking about and discussing this 32-county project to develop a new dispensation in Ireland.
Her talk was one in the ongoing Tar Isteach programme of discussions every Wednesday evening, which enables young Sinn Féin activists to meet and discuss with ex-prisoners and hear of their experiences during the years of conflict.
Martina spoke first about jail, and told of the amazing times at the start of the Peace Process, the ferment of ideas in the jail arising from regular delegations which came to visit the republican prisoners to discuss political developments in the struggle.
She talked of the historic meeting where hundreds of republican prisoners, men and women, gathered in Long Kesh to talk with the visiting South African delegation about their own peace process and the future of our own.
Martina is Sinn Féin's policy researcher at Stormont. She outlined the enormous burden which rests on those who work in Stormont to service the ten departments and the cross border implementation bodies.
Martina spoke of the huge voluntary work by supporters and experts in different fields in helping to brief Assembly members and ministers. She outlined the appalling difficulties faced by Ministers in dealing within the situation of collective cabinet ministerial responsibility, where ministers are not at liberty to organise and publicise their opposition.
She discussed the need to link with activists on the ground, so that political decisions and policies reflect the community, and involve party activists.
She talked of the constraints on budgets for our two ministers, who run the highest spending departments; how the budget constraints imposed by England on expenditure pose major problems and force upon our ministers policies which conflict with republican ideals for the new Ireland. Above all, she highlighted the failure, due to our lack of political strength, to overcome unionist resistance, backed by the SDLP, to set up a Department of Equality, and the hold-ups there have been in the development of the cross-border implementation bodies, which hold out the potential for the all-Ireland dimension.
Young people took up the question and discussed possiible ways of helping, including the possibility of instituting an intern programme to give students from Ógra Shinn Féin and university cumainn an awareness of the policy issues that arise in the work at Stormont and experience in dealing with briefs.
Many people at the meetings expressed their amazement that after so many years in jail Martina is still so heavily involved in the work of the movement. In her unassuming way she explained succinctly that she had always intended to become reinvolved after jail, that although "work in Stormont was harder than active service" it was work that needed to be done.
It was a remarkable exchange between the different generations of activists, all thinking about and discussing this 32-county project to develop a new dispensation in Ireland.