22/02/2018 The View

Whatever you choose to call it -

a draft deal, a draft framework,

an accomodation, an understanding -

the process is over and we're

back in limbo - again.

But how do we pick up the pieces -

and where do we go from here?

Welcome to The View...

It was the week in which the only

barrier to agreement seemed to be

several sets of square brackets.

The DUP's Sir Jeffrey Donaldson

and Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly

are with me to explain why the words

contained within those brackets have

been allowed to become the source

of the latest political dispute

here.

I'll be asking them how they plan

to break the current

logjam over devolution,

direct rule and Dublin involvement.

And as the first formal steps

are taken to hold a referendum

on abortion in the Republic, we hear

from both sides in the debate...

I have been called a murderer. I

know that I'm not. That is all that

matters. How I sleep at night is

that by 100% do not believe that.

Less women are having abortions

because our society has become more

tolerant and compassionate and

giving women better support.

And back

in Commentators' Corner

to reflect on the latest

twists and turns -

the News Letter's Sam McBride

and Allison Morris

from the Irish News...

Hello.

It's just over a week since

the Stormont talks collapsed amidst

finger-pointing and recrimination.

Since then we've seen

the publication of a leaked thirteen

page 'draft agreement text',

the status of which the two big

parties refuse to agree on.

We've had statements, denials,

assurances and a series

of Prime Ministerial meetings.

What we haven't had is any clear

idea of what happens next.

Let's see if Jeffrey Donaldson

and Gerry Kelly can clarify

things for us tonight.

Welcome to you both...

Thank you for joining us. Sir

Jeffrey

Thank you for joining us. Sir

Jeffrey, before we dive in, you have

come from a meeting with the DUP

executive, that meeting was

discussing a restructuring of party

officers, what form did that take?

I'm not sure where that came from.

It wasn't our meeting for changing

anything. We received a report back

from the party leader, from our

negotiation team on the talks. The

executive strongly endorsed the

stance taken by our leader and the

talks team.

No promotion Saudi

motions? Was Arlene Foster's

leadership discussed formally?

Not

at all -- or demotions.

Nothing

about the past ten days?

There was

strong support for her at the

meeting tonight.

Was it unanimous

support?

I would describe it that

way. As always, in the party, we had

a good debate on the issues but in

terms of the leadership, not a

single dissenting voice.

A good

debate about the issues, there were

dissenting voices on how the

situation was handled?

I wouldn't

say that. A good debate is on the

issues. There was no dissent around

the stance the party had taken.

Arlene Foster said yesterday very

clearly that she was never

contemplating an Irish language act.

Do you believe her when she says

that? Absolutely.

Do think everybody

else believes her? The facts speak

for themselves. The DUP made their

position clear. We do not dislike

people speaking in Irish and

teaching their children Irish, we

spent £192 million in the last five

years on the Irish language in

Northern Ireland, £192 million.

Those are not my figures,

independently verified statistics.

Now, that being the case, the

question for me is, what do we do

next? The bottom line, Mark, it is

clear for my party. We uphold and

respect the right of whoever chooses

and wishes to speak and learn a

language in Northern Ireland. But we

do not believe it is right to impose

that language on others.

Who is

suggesting imposing it? A lot of

proposals that have come forward

from the Irish language groups and

Sinn Fein, they include signage,

using the language in public

services, having a quota for people

taking up employment in public

services... In this text, I have it

in front of me, I'm sure you've read

it, 13 pages, are those issues

addressed. These negotiations in the

text, you made it clear?

Yes, but

there are issues still contained

within the proposals that we find

unacceptable.

But it was a very

advanced piece of work. Tightly

argued and carefully drafted over a

very long period of time. Ready to

be signed off on. Presentational

differences only at the very end.

With respect, I think they were more

than presentational. Square brackets

around key elements of the document

show there still wasn't agreement on

the text within the document. Still

not agreement on some of the

proposals, specifically related to

the Irish language act. If anyone

takes time to read the document in

any great detail, the number of

words inside square brackets, that

is very small in proportion to the

13 pages?

As Arlene Foster made

clear, before the talks came to an

end, we had made real progress

across a range of issues. We do not

deny that. It is our progress, we

worked hard to make it.

With the

greatest respect, your colleague,

Gregory Campbell, on the programme

last week, he denied the DUP's

fingerprints were over this text at

all. He said it was of no more

significance of any of the papers

exchanged over the last few weeks.

One week and it looks very

different?

Let me be very clear. The

document that you have is the latest

iteration in a whole series of

documents that were exchanged

between the two parties. The

document was constantly changing.

The final iteration...

That is not

the final iteration. I disagree, it

is not the final iteration. It

cannot be because it is not agreed.

There are still elements of that

document not agreed. Let me be

clear, in order for us to agree to

the proposals, they need to be

changes to the text that is that. We

cannot and will not accept the

document in its current form. That's

our position. Gregory Rose White to

say that there is -- Gregory was

right to say there is not an

agreement.

But there was a very well

developed most recent iteration of

that document, and it is clear, if

you read Eamon Malley and Brian

Rowan, there was a large

correspondence around that, during

which senior representatives of the

DUP, your party negotiators, were

negotiating under the headline of

"Final draft agreement text".

The

keywords you use there is the most

recent iteration. That's all. It is

not the final product. It cannot be.

Because it has not been agreed.

You

pulled out. It is the last draft.

It

was as far as we had got.

You

decided to walk out, you did not

tell us all the British government

you were walking out, or the Irish

government. You went straight to the

press and you pulled the

negotiations down. For the record,

that is a DUP draft. That is the

draft that came from the DUP.

It

came from the DUP to Sinn Fein?

It

can be proven, it was sent by

e-mail.

Do you accept Jeffrey

Donaldson's point that there are

significant portions of this that

remain inside of square brackets

which have not been signed off on.

As you pointed out, these are

presentational issues. But, let's

get back to this, Jeffrey started

off on facts and he talked about 192

million. Let's deal with that. The

statistic is that education involved

in the Irish language medium. The

children who have a human right to

education, that money would have

been spent on them anyway. So here

we go again. With this

misinterpretation of what was said.

He started arguing against himself

over the issue that this was going

to be thrust on people.

I did not

say that.

Your supporters said that.

But the DUP were in negotiations.

The DUP knew that it was not true.

Unhelpful for Sinn Fein, to have

Irish language activists saying that

on the airwaves. That undercut your

position.

It doesn't matter, people

have the right to say whatever they

want to say.

But it did not help you

in the negotiations, it spooked the

DUP.

To be clear, DUP negotiations

went through line by line of the

legislation involved in the Irish

language act. And the Ulster Scots

act. They went through and agreed

it.

What I am interested in, you

have accepted, Jeffrey, that there

was not a deal that you have said

there was a long process of

negotiation and this document is the

most recent iteration of that

process, you accept that it was

carefully drafted and worded and a

lot of hard work went into it. On

Tuesday night, on Spotlight, your

colleague said he had a hand in

writing this document, Gregory

Campbell said it did not exist a

week ago but things have moved on.

This draft is 13 pages long, and it

has a series of detailed annexes.

These bills spreading across some 20

pages, according to tonight's latest

revelation on the Eamon Malley

website. It doesn't stand up to

intelligent scrutiny. You saying

that suddenly at the last movement,

all of the Irish language stuff

would come out? I'm not saying that

at all.

I'm saying that elements of

the document on the Irish language

had not been agreed. We have major

concerns on those proposals. In

relation to the draft legislation...

The point is the bits within square

brackets were not agree. There's

plenty in here about it, not in

square brackets, but it was

officially recognition of the

language status in Northern Ireland.

Going through the details of what

the commissioner would do and will

not do, the best practice standards,

the same thing for Ulster Scots and

the same for the white respecting

diversity. Those are not in square

brackets.

They are not but the

principle of how they will be dealt

with why not agreed. On the basis

that nothing is agreed until

everything is agreed, that's the

basis on which we operate. I can say

to you...

You walked out! Of the

negotiations.

That was not prepared

by our negotiators, the draft

legislation was drawn up by

officials within the Northern

Ireland Office, who looked at the

latest iteration and where it had

got to. We had not accepted or

endorsed or said that we would run

with any of that stuff. The reason

being, we had not agreed to

anything.

You were preparing to do a

deal that would include legislation

for the Irish language act. It does

not tie in with what your party

leaders said the other day. She was

not contemplating it at all. Clearly

someone in the DUP was contemplating

it.

We never said that we could not

legislate, what we said was that we

would not agree to a freestanding

Irish language act. That is what we

have said.

You would accept Irish

language legislation? Actually, this

has shifted...

We already have Irish

language legislation.

Fresh Irish

language legislation?

We said we

would look but we are clear that

while we will uphold the right of

people, if they so wish, to learn or

speak Irish, what we will not agree

to, this is where there are

difficulties to what is proposed at

the moment, we think it still

crosses the boundary for us and that

is that we do not want to have

circumstances for people who do not

want to speak Irish have it imposed

upon them.

Where is it mentioned?

Where has anyone suggested that? He

does not want that, why do you keep

mentioning it?

There are elements in

these proposals that give us cause.

Can you clarify this for us?

It has

been clarified over and again. There

was no issue of making anything

compulsory for people to deduct

what

about craters?

Quotas were not

involved. -- Reuters.

And finally,

here is the reality of the

situation. With Sinn Fein's

determination to push for a

freestanding Irish language act, it

has brought the whole thing tumbling

down around everyone's ears. If you

had been realistic and listened more

carefully to DUP negotiators, you

would have accepted that they could

not sell it.

Why would it be up to

me? They are the negotiators, they

need to work out what they can and

cannot do.

cannot do. You'd expect for 20

minutes. Let's deal with the issues.

We got to this draft act, whatever

you want to call it, but that's what

it was. The fact that Jeffrey hasn't

answered is that they didn't come

back and argue for something else,

they walk out, they walked out. They

brought this to a fault. In fact,

one of the things I noticed earlier

on, either love -- I believe

Baroness Paisley said, we wouldn't

be in any of this if you'd read the

text. Let me say this, because

Jeffrey spoke for quite a long time.

At the core of this, what we are

dealing with and the issues we are

dealing with other whether it is

legacy or the Irish language act, is

that the DUP's stance is to refuse

those rights which exist everywhere

else on these islands.

That is not

the case.

Their people supportive of

an Irish culture and language and

feel there is not parity of esteem

for their worldview in Northern

Ireland.

What rights do they not

have that I have?

They don't feel

that their Irish this is respected.

He is an -- give me an example of

how people who regard themselves as

Irish living on this part of the

eyelid of parity of esteem with

people who are British. -- part of

the island.

It costs five times more

to educate an Irish child than it

costs to educate the children that

go to the schools that go in the

community 's...

You answer my

question?

My Britishness is being

eroded. I could sit here and say

that my rights are being denied. I

see my Britishness being diminished

in Northern Ireland.

How?

When I

hear people in Sinn Fein constantly

denigrating my Britishness, I can

say that my rights... I don't

accept... I do not accept that Irish

language speakers in Northern

Ireland have been denied rights. I

don't accept that. I think we have

provided very generously for the

Irish language.

Collectively. Listen

to what he's saying, he is saying

that... He is saying they had not

been denied rights.

And yet we were

so far on in talking about this, so

now Jeffrey is saying all of that

stuff is nonsense, because their

actual position is that there were

no rights to talk about in the first

place.

I'd love to have time to

explore this because I think it's

interesting. Make it quick.

Less

than 1% of people in Northern

Ireland speak Irish as their first

language.

It's become totemic

because of how DUP has handled it in

the past.

That's rubbish.

Jeffrey,

you don't think the decision that

was made 18 months ago has made a

difference? You don't think that

weaponised the issue?

Sinn Fein

weaponised the issue.

You don't

think those things caused

difficulties?

When you set those

things alongside what the Northern

Ireland Assembly has done to promote

the Irish language in Northern

Ireland, at huge cost, I don't

accept that a language spoken by 1%

of the population of Northern

Ireland...

This document looks like

you were preparing to do an awful

lot more. I would ask you where we

go from here. Is this document the

basis for future talks, Jerry Kelly?

You can't look at and close down the

negotiations, which is what was

done, and we didn't know they were

going to do it, the British and

Irish governments didn't know, they

walked out in the middle of what was

a meeting.

OLD TALK AT ONCE.

You walked out in November.

Martin

McGuinness walked out last January.

I'm just stating that is what they

did.

And others walked out,

including Sinn Fein.

What was your

question?

What is the plan B?

You

can't walk out one day and then have

the cheek the

the cheek the next day, within

hours, to say, we need to go back

into talks, when everybody knows

what the issues are, when we spent

13 months trying to work it out,

when we made huge progress and then

the DUP, for their own reasons, were

unwilling to sell it, or they

couldn't sell it.

Is Sinn Fein still

prepared to go into talks?

Where we

go from here is, because the DUP are

refusing on three issues, not just

the Irish language, give people

their rights, the two governments

were signatories to the Irish

language act in the St Andrews

agreement as well, and the legacy

issues which the British government

has had sitting there for two years,

we need to pick that up but

we don't

have a lot of time, so you'd like to

see Westminster dealing with these

issues?

I was in any of those

sectors, the

sectors, the Irish language or

marriage equality, I'd want that

moved ahead. The two governments

have the responsibility, in the

absence of the executive. I want the

executive up.

But if that doesn't

happen, you are saying that the two

governments take these issues to

Westminster and legislate there?

I'm

saying, set up the British Irish

intergovernmental conference and,

yes, sort out these things. The two

governments should be involved.

Legislate through Westminster? Is

that something you could agree with?

Take it out of your hands and then

there is plausible deniability

all-round and then all of the

problems you had with the document

the British equitable deal with at

Westminster and you could look your

supporters in the eye and say, not

my fault.

No, it's not the right

thing to do. The right thing is to

take responsibility.

What does that

mean?

The Irish government don't sit

at Westminster, so any government

taken forward for Northern Ireland

will be by the government of

northern Lee the United Kingdom.

Do

you mean by legislating at

Westminster or getting back into

talks with Sinn Fein and sorting the

matter out and getting devolution

back up and running? Why did you

walk away from the talks?

If they

hadn't walked out, we could have

been sorting this out. That's what

that was about.

You're not going to

cut yourself out of this one.

Hold

on,...

We said the talks, as far as

these proposals were concerned, we

didn't feel there was going to be a

meeting of minds.

And what happens

now?

In terms of where we are, we

have set, and I repeat this, and

while we are sitting here tonight,

talking about this, I can tell you

that back home in my constituency,

what people are really interested in

is waiting lists and hospitals.

And

I appreciate this.

We know it, so I

don't want to waste time. People

don't disagree.

I don't think we

waste time when we talk about the

issues that really matter to people.

This also matters.

You withdraw your

preconditions and let's form the

executive today, and we can continue

in parallel with taking the

decisions that help ordinary people

who are waiting for operations,

school principals struggling...

You

have made this point.

Let's form the

executive and continue to try and

work out these issues.

I appreciate

the frank exchange of views, and I

know we have tried to cover a lot of

ground. Should people be optimistic

that there is a glimmer of hope,

that these issues would seem

intractable can be sorted out

quickly?

In my opinion there was not

an intractable problem that we've

sold problems than this. If you

wanted to move this forward, the

first thing, the DUP said they want

to be involved, it's about legacy.

Give the money to the Lord Chief

Justice and there are victims who

have been waiting 45, 46 years, give

them some respect, give the money to

the Lord Chief Justice, that's

nothing to do with politics.

That

isn't in this document.

That is

because we were involved in

discussions with the British

government.

And you agreed that?

There is a bit of sarcasm coming

from the right.

And you agreed it

with the British government is to

mock

yes. The consultation was going

to be put out and the money was

going to be released to the Lord

Chief Justice.

When was it agreed?

Alongside that.

Why can't that

go-ahead?

It should.

Even though

this agreement has fallen?

It should

go ahead. If that issue of legacy

payments has been agreed by Sinn

Fein and the British government.

Yes.

We are

Yes.

We are happy...

We believe

victims and survivors should now

have their say and it is long past

time when they should have their say

on those proposals, but as for

handing over money to one element of

the legacy problem, we don't

believe...

The Lord Chief Justice

has asked for this money. I trust

him to be an impartial legal figure

who does what is right for everybody

in Northern Ireland?

It isn't that

we don't trust the Lord Chief

Justice.

So you couldn't disagree

with his call for the money.

We are

saying there is also money needed to

investigate the unsolved murders for

thousands of innocent people while

waiting and waiting for their cases

to be dealt with and, because they

haven't gone for an inquest, they

are not getting priority, and that's

just not fair.

To be clear, and we

are ticking extra time, because this

is an interesting development.

A

moment ago, Jeffrey said he didn't

know there were negotiations going

on about the legacy, and now he has

given the opinions on it.

In queue

is to know, let's take a minute or

two more, because we've got

somewhere I didn't think we'd get

to. -- I am curious to know. Did the

DUP know that that issue had been

agreed between Sinn Fein and the

British government?

We certainly

didn't. I am our party's

representative on legacy issues. I

can tell you now that I am certainly

not aware of, and was not aware of,

the government agreed with Sinn Fein

they were going to hand over money.

To be absolutely clear, Jerry Kelly

has told me that's been agreed, and

I have to take his word, but you are

now telling me, as the DUP's person

on this, that you didn't know.

Absolutely.

Is that a surprise to

you? Is a surprise it can say that?

-- a surprise to hear him say that.

As I understand it, and you may

contradict this, I understood that

members of the officer board of the

DUP said, maybe including yourself,

that you didn't know how far this

agreement had gone. And therefore

you didn't know about this as well.

Is that right? So now you are

talking as if you were completely...

You've been left out in the cold by

your own party.

You are a version of

events from Jerry Kelly. I will

speak on this issue for the DUP, but

I can tell you categorically that

the DUP has not been involved in

discussions, or been party...

Here

is what happened the macro

explain

it to us.

It was what happened.

Arlene Foster was very upset she was

getting back the legacy money.

Jeffrey Donaldson has now told us

they were holding back that money. I

said, OK, well, what is it

precisely? I was being told by the

negotiators they had no problem with

that. And one of the other

negotiators, who was clearly more in

charge, said, hold on, we have a

position. Explain that the officer

board didn't know what was going on?

I presume parts of the board,

certainly the lead of your party,

was involved in the negotiations.

What is communication like at senior

levels in the DUP?

Excellent, in

relation to the legacy inquest and

funding and legacy proposals, no

such proposal was put to me. I most

certainly am not aware of any

agreement reached between Sinn Fein

and the UK Government to hand over

money for legacies.

This is

interesting, he did not know about

that. Gerry was surprised you did

not know that, it seems that Gregory

Campbell did not know some of the

details of this agreement last week

either. Where there is some

negotiators trying to go ahead and

reach compromises with Sinn Fein and

other senior members of the party

were not told about that?

I do not

believe that is the case.

Could you

understand why people may think

that?

Based on what Jerry is telling

you...

You say that you do not

believe him, and what he just said

tonight.

I have heard his version of

events. I am telling you that in the

meetings of the party officers that

I attended, that this issue did not

arise.

Did you attend them all?

I

was there at all of them.

Will you

phone after this to see how you were

blindsided?

I don't think I need to.

We are hearing what Sinn Fein were

saying but we will be talking to the

government at Westminster about it.

You would be pretty annoyed with the

government if you discovered what

Gerry Kelly was saying and you did

not know?

Once again the DUP are

refusing the rights of victims...

A

final question, we have gone way

over on this. Do you have a document

that clearly shows the issue of

legacy payments has been agreed

between Sinn Fein and the British

government? I can prove it. Will you

bring it into the public domain?

Otherwise we just had to take your

word for it.

You can take my word

for it. I understand, but it is not

my choice. It is not my decision.

Therefore I will not commit to put

it out there.

Unfortunately there we

just have to take your word for it

and it is your word against Sir

Jeffrey's.

Fair enough, but I have

not discussed this with the

leadership. I'm not going to give a

commitment on this programme.

It is

quite a development tonight, that is

for sure.

Just to be clear, to say

that the DUP, or Jeffrey, did not

know about this, is erroneous.

An

intriguing conversation. Thank you

to both of you for joining us and

thank you for your frank exchange of

views. I suspect that this is an

issue that we will come back to very

soon. And your phone may be beeping

overnight, I would have thought

people would want to talk to you! We

will leave it there. We are not

going to hear Shane Harrison's

report from Dublin on the reform of

the eighth amendment for obvious

reasons. I think you would

understand that. Of course, we will

endeavour to bring it to you as soon

as we can.

Now a change of guard

in Commentators' Corner tonight -

and I'm joined by the News Letter's

Political Editor, Sam McBride,

and Allison Morris

from the Irish News...

Welcome, we don't have a lot of

time. That was very interesting.

First, did you see that coming? Did

you know that there had been an

agreement between Sinn Fein and the

British comment on legacy?

I do

know, the 150,000,004 inquest a

completely different part of money.

Jeffrey was trying to combine the

two, they are very separate. It is

interesting, what we were told first

of all is that it wasn't a deal or a

draft but now what we are being told

is that there was a side deal in

relation to legacy between the

British government and Sinn Fein,

which would be good news if that was

the case for victims waiting on

inquests but it also shows the

distrust between the two parties

within those talks, that it is

greater than we thought. What

exactly was going on behind closed

doors, we had Gregory Campbell

denied that he was ever dealing in

the first place and Arlene Foster is

still denying that there was a deal

and Jeffrey Donaldson saying that

they had agreed to most of the

proposals. I am proud of the fact

that he helped to write it, even

though we were told two days before

that it did not exist.

I don't know

if you -- what you make of what

happened in the studio this evening

but it moves things on

significantly?

The possibility of

this being a side deal, as Alison

has suggested, that will not be very

reassuring to DUP supporters, if

that is what has happened. There

could be plausible deniability, if

there were people in the DUP who did

know about that. It becomes a

crucial issue. Jeffrey Donaldson

should have known about it, that is

his area but what we did learn

earlier in the discussion which is

very significant, Jeffrey Donaldson

basically saying that Irish will be

an official language in Northern

Ireland. Do they support an Irish

language act, will they accept it or

not? Arlene Foster saying that she

would not contemplate it. It seems

to me that they will accept the

heart of what would be an Irish

language act but it will be called

that and there will be other bells

and whistles to cover over what has

actually happened.

Where do we go on

the issue of proving all of this?

Gerry Kelly was very clear. He

explained it, as he sees it. He says

he has proved, it is accurate, what

he said tonight. Jeffrey says he

knows nothing about it but Gerry

says he will not put evidence in the

public domain. There will be a lot

of questions asked over the next few

days!

We will have to wait and see

whether the aim and marry website

can produce evidence not! That it is

clear that the agreements were a lot

further on than what we were led to

believe by the DUP. Clearly we are

at a more advanced stage and what

does surprise me is that the DUP

will tell them this is going to

happen and are doubling down on the

lie that there was no deal.

And

there was a hint that Westminster

need to take responsibility for

this. Westminster to legislate for

the languages and on the issue of

legacy and other issues like

same-sex marriage?

You can

understand, whether it is people

arguing for Irish language, it is

not so attractive potentially to

some of those people if it breaks

with the fact Parliament does not

legislate on devolved matters.

Thank

you very much.

That's it from The View

for this week.

Join me for Sunday Politics

at 11.35 here on BBC1.

Finally tonight, we know in this

part of the world anthems can be

seen as controversial,

divisive - even inflammatory.

But sometimes anthems

are just really, really bad.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I give you popstar Fergie at this

week's NBA All-Star game in Los

Angeles.

Good night...

# O Say does that star-spangled

banner yet wave

(POWERFULLY) # O'er

the land of the free

and the home of the brave?

#