Delivering the Promise of the Good Friday Agreement

Conference notes that 10th April marked the 20th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Conference recalls that UNISON, ICTU and a number of affiliates actively supported and campaigned for a ‘Yes’ vote for a society based on peace, justice, equality and rights. For UNISON, our campaigning included public demonstrations, members meetings, leaflets and advertisements in support of the Agreement. We believe the time has come to repeat such mobilisation to finally secure the promised implementation.

We recognise that the Agreement has led to relative peace in our society in comparison to the years of conflict. However Conference also recognises that in the intervening years there has been significant regression from its principles and non-implementation of key provisions of both the Good Friday Agreement and subsequent agreements, particularly relating to equality and human rights. This has been demonstrated by:

• The failure of all our local politicians to properly share power within a framework of equality and human rights, which has left our society even more divided and unequal;
• Policy and resource allocation decisions taken outside of an equality and human rights framework which have led to persistently high levels of poverty, major inequalities in housing and in peoples’ health and educational outcomes, and continuing austerity and welfare cuts;
• A series of political crises since 1998;
• The lack of commitment by successive British and Irish Governments to their binding obligations under international law as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement, which has weakened the Agreement even further.

Conference further believes that this regression away from the letter and spirit of the Agreement and subsequent commitments flowing from it has been evidenced by:

• The failure of the UK Government to bring forward a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland;
• Repeated threats by the UK Government to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998;
• The lack of a comprehensive process to address the issues faced by victims and survivors and to deal with the past;
• The failure of politicians and public bodies to properly implement the statutory duty to promote equality of opportunity under section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998;
• The failure to implement a Single Equality Bill;
• The failure to bring forward an Anti-Poverty Strategy based on objective need;
• The lack of Irish Language legislation;
• The continuing use of ‘emergency’ powers in relation to policing and justice;
• The pursuit of a ‘hard’ exit from the EU by the UK Government, which will undermine key principles of the Good Friday Agreement.

Conference believes that in the years that followed 1998 the opponents of equality and human rights were effectively given a veto on progress. This particularly manifests itself as continuing opposition towards women’s rights including reproductive rights, opposition to marriage equality, the failure to distribute resources or invest in public services on the basis of objective need and the failure to challenge sectarianism in particular, and promote equality of opportunity.

Conference therefore calls on the Northern Ireland Committee to continue to pursue the full implementation of the commitments made within the Peace Agreements. Conference calls on the Northern Ireland Committee to refocus its efforts towards:

• Restoring the status of the key principles of equality and human rights within the Good Friday Agreement and calling for the full implementation of all commitments that have remained undelivered or have been significantly weakened;
• Re-energising our members and the public as to the wider importance of the Agreement, replicating and building on the successful approaches of the past;
• Calling for a return to genuine power-sharing within a framework of equality and human rights, to improve the lives of all our members, their families and their communities.

This campaign should include strategic engagement with all local political parties and both the UK and Irish Governments at all necessary levels to bring pressure to bear on them to fulfil their obligations, particularly in the context of negotiations on exiting the EU. It should also include a mobilisation of workers and communities in support of full implementation of the Agreement.