The Good Friday Agreement has been a failure and the problems are still Impossible to over come. Do you agree?

 The Downing Street Declaration was an agreement, which happened in 1993. It was an agreement between John Major (the prime minister at the time) and Albert Reynolds. The talks were to try and set up a new type of government for Northern Ireland. The new government would respect all of Northern Irelands traditions e.g. the march for William of Orange. The people and parties who could be involved were those who were peaceful. John Major and the British government had no real political or economic interest in Northern Ireland, only the welfare of the people who lived there. Not everybody was happy about the agreement. The DUP opposed it saying it “conceded too much power to Dublin and the Irish Republican army.” But most people saw it and spoke about it as “framework for a peace settlement”. The Downing Street Declaration led to the ceasefire by the IRA. They did this due to pressure form Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein. Although people were happy with the agreement hard line Loyalists like Ian Paisly were completely against it. This led to more killings and shootings throughout Northern Ireland

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        On 10 th April 1998 the Good Friday agreement was signed. It was only on 22 nd May 1998 that the people saw the outlook of the agreement. From then on there has been speculation on whether the agreement would help make any progress in Northern Ireland or just cause more disturbance between the two separations.                 One aspect of the agreement that has been fully implemented is the removal of the Irish Republics Territorial Claim. This is the part of the agreement that states that the Irish Government has no claim on Northern Ireland. This is a key part of the agreement because Northern Ireland finally does not have the Irish Government ruling them. Another aspect of the agreement that was fully implemented was the setting up of the Northern Ireland Assembly. This was an aspect of the agreement that was a key factor into the success of the agreement. It contained the fact that an assembly of people were constructed, an executive was formed and the transfer of powers took place. This was a great succession as far as the agreement was concerned and the people were pleased with the results, as the democratic parties were becoming more involved and it seemed like the problems in Northern Ireland were gradually being resolved. The aspect that pleased people from Northern Ireland was that they got the final say in the form of a ballet box. This way they would have to agree before any final changes went ahead. Lastly the point that has made the most impact on Northern Ireland is the fact that the I.R.A. has begun decommissioning. This came after years of talks from Jerry Adams trying to persuade the Irish Republican Army to give up or destroy any weapons they had.

        I think that things haven’t got better by have started to the fact that people understand that there is a problem in Northern Ireland and are trying to do things to help pays a big part in everything that happens because if everyone tried to ignore it the problems would just grow and grow.

Although there have been a lot of breakthroughs there are still obstacles to over come. One being that the IRA won’t decommission their weapons until the Unionists compromise. The problem with this is that the Unionists wont compromise until the IRA decommissions their weapons. People like Ian Paisley are still against peace at all costs and just want to win. In 1985 Ian Paisley spoke about his feelings about the Anglo-Irish treaty. “I would fight to the death to prevent a united Ireland”. He still feels like this today and hopes one day the Protestants will win. This is also the view of other parties such as Sinn Fein although recently they have been willing to take part in peace talks.