The great spectator sport of political observers of Irish elections in recent years has been the increasingly febrile, not to say reckless, behaviour of Michael McDowell as each election draws near.
During the last general election he took off on a solo run to warn the voters of the dangers of giving a single party, by which he meant Fianna Fail, a majority.
Desperate to be elected after losing his seat in 1997, his one man campaign amounted to a ferocious attack on the government's record and intentions if re-elected in 2002, even though he was that government's attorney general.
He was last seen up a lamp-post in the closing days of the election campaign.
This time he has caused enormous controversy by complicating the local and European elections with a referendum on citizenship which has led to the government being accused of racism and opportunism.
Some senior members of his own party have not concealed their distaste for the government's tactics on the referendum and McDowell's campaign.
Part of his strategy this time has been highly publicised attacks on Sinn Féin which keep him in the limelight. Some say it was these repeated attacks on them which led SF to leak the deal done last autumn about releasing the killers of Garda McCabe, a leak which nicely hoist McDowell by his own petard. He has spent the last 10 days grovelling to the Garda Representative Association.
A side effect of his assault on SF has been its result in the north. McDowell has suddenly discovered Sinn Féin is linked to the IRA and since the June elections in the Republic hove into sight he has used his position as minister of justice to issue a stream of accusations about republican criminality which have been music to DUP ears.
In fact, McDowell's assertions, which are regularly quoted by DUP figures like Peter Robinson, have made it easy for the DUP to refuse to enter talks with SF.
Only last Friday McDowell met Jeffrey Donaldson along with the leader of a victims group and told them the IRA was netting between £10 million and £20 million from racketeering along the border.
Now there's precision for you, figures that could only come from the detailed intelligence available to a minister of justice; figures strangely at variance with those released by any other government or police inquiry in recent years. No matter. It allowed Donaldson a sound bite and McDowell 10 seconds of publicity.
Does it help anything in the north? Not a bit. On the contrary: every word McDowell says will be taken down and used as evidence to avoid entering talks with SF. Bolstered by McDowell's campaign, the DUP has now raised its conditions for talking to SF higher than those Trimble set for entering a northern administration with it. Not only has the Taoiseach not shut McDowell up, he has more or less endorsed his allegations thereby making a nonsense of his stated aim of restoring devolution by October, unless he means October 2006.
Why? Oh sure, the obvious reason is that SF is doing well in the polls showing it will take many Fianna Fail seats and maybe even squeeze a European seat in Dublin. McDowell wants to steal Fine Gael's clothes as the Laurna Order party and grab a few more PD council seats. But are those good enough reasons to wreck any chance of a deal in the north?
Of course not and both the culprits know it. So why do they persist?
Sadly the answer is that there is no chance of a deal in the north, not this year and probably not next. There's a lot of wishful thinking about 'young', pragmatic politicians in the DUP like Peter Robinson (56) and Nigel Dodds (46). Listen to what they say though. They all say the same. They won't even talk to SF until it has surrendered all weapons and the IRA has gone out of business. How could they know? They couldn't but they don't care. They don't care because they don't want the agreement to work. Remember, most unionists are opposed to the agreement and that's why they voted DUP.
Most unionists are happy with direct rule because the British administration's default position is unionist status quo. Direct rule is a fool-proof way of avoiding change. Remember for twenty-five years the DUP and the rapidly vanishing UUP opposed sharing power with the harmless SDLP who never killed anyone, even by mistake. Can anyone explain why they should now agree to share power with Sinn Féin in a 1998 arrangement they opposed from the word go?
