Covid-19 has caused many people in Northern Ireland to consider the quality of our society’s governance and leadership. As with the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal before it, the political structures have come under sustained criticism.

One common suggestion is for voluntary coalition to replace mandatory coalition. The difficulty is that this might reverse the gains achieved by having political representatives of unionists and also republicans and nationalists within government.

Yet the gains from the peace process have disappointed. As former finance, economy and health minister Simon Hamilton told us in a Forward Together podcast interview: “It’s odd that a power-sharing executive of Sinn Fein and the DUP - with all the difficulties that were there and the effort that had been put into coming together, the symbolism that was inherent within that in itself - didn’t actually prioritise peace building and trying to develop a shared society. Even trying to work out what we meant by ‘a shared society’ or ‘a more integrated society’. It didn’t feel that was always our priority.

“Maybe what I’m trying to say is that we maybe thought that just doing it, ie the power sharing, was enough in itself without realising that you had to go much, much further beyond that.”

In a previous interview – from several years ago – I asked another minister how he would respond to a request from the then secretary of state for Northern Ireland to work more closely and productively with ministers from other parties. He shouted down the phone at me: “We are working with people we don’t like, what more does she expect us to do!”

It is 22 years since the Good Friday Agreement, yet the emotional trauma and anger dating from the Troubles has barely dissipated, it seems.  This is despite the ceasefires having held and leadership positions being taken by younger politicians, who had no part in the Troubles and were not even adults at the time.

To again quote Simon Hamilton: “We were all a bit naïve in thinking that this was a generational problem.” Instead, animosity has passed down the generations, still undermining attempts for the Executive and Assembly to work coherently and cohesively.

We need to instead build consensus. Many of those we interviewed suggested citizens’ assemblies could be used, alongside the party political system. In Ireland, assemblies have been used to address what were thought to be intractable challenges relating to abortions, same sex marriage, climate change and gender equality, while in France they are being used to consider climate policies.

Peter Sheridan, a former senior officer in the RUC and PSNI and now chief executive of Co-operation Ireland, argued that localised assemblies could assist communities decide how to reduce the attraction of paramilitaries to teenagers and young adults. Irish language activist Linda Ervine suggested a local assembly could draw people together across Belfast’s peace lines. Lord, former Archbishop, Robin Eames hoped assemblies could give people a voice to say what they really feel, without their views being moderated or misrepresented by either politicians or the media.

Citizens’ assemblies cannot resolve all the stresses of Northern Ireland’s society, but they might assist. At the very least, assemblies remove a specific problem political parties’ face – their fear that if they become more reasonable they will be denounced by the public. Experience in the South suggests that through assemblies, the very opposite is likely to be the case.

Paul Gosling

‘Lessons from the Troubles and the Unsettled Peace’ is published by Holywell Trust: copies are available on the Holywell Trust website and through the Kindle Store. The book comprises interviews from the Forward Together Series One podcasts.