Fianna Fail halt northern advances

By Shane Harrison
BBC NI Dublin correspondent

Brian Cowen was rumoured to be less keen on Fianna Fail expanding north

Taoiseach Brian Cowen has said there is no imminent possibility of his Fianna Fáil party organising in Northern Ireland.

His remarks are seen by many as putting the idea on the backburner, but the idea was never really on the front-burner.

Even before Mr Cowen took over from Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader, there was speculation he was less keen than his predecessor on the idea of his party organising in Northern Ireland.

This assumed that Mr Ahern was the main man pushing for Fianna Fáil, which translates as the Soldiers of Destiny, marching north.

But I suspect it was never the case.

In a BBC interview shortly after he announced his intention to quit as Taoiseach but before he left office, he advised his party "to be careful" about not making any major decision on Northern Ireland without "reflecting a good bit" on standing for elections and considering its relationship with the SDLP.

He said that while he was "glad" Fianna Fáil was recruiting in Northern Ireland there was "no rush" on organising north of the border.

These comments were echoed by Mr Cowen on a recent visit to Belfast.

Mark Durkan and Bertie Ahern met in April at a border trade conference

Flanked by the SDLP's Stormont minister, Margaret Ritchie, he said: "I don't think that people should think that there's any imminent change about to take place."

Last September, Bertie Ahern told a Fianna Fáil think-in that in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement and the return of devolution to Northern Ireland, the time was right for his party to examine the issue of organising in Northern Ireland.

The announcement was greeted enthusiastically by the grassroots.

This was hardly a surprise as the party's twin aims are Irish unity by peaceful means and restoring the Irish language.

But a closer examination of what Bertie Ahern proposed revealed there was little in the way of a timetable.

Easter deadline

Dermot Ahern, a member of the cabinet and a border TD, was asked to chair a committee that would by Easter this year receive submissions from the party's cumann, or branches, and from other interested parties outside the organisation.

That Easter deadline has come and gone but nothing more has been heard of the party's deliberations.

A Fianna Fáil source says that in the period since Easter, the party's focus has been diverted to the change in leadership, the Lisbon treaty referendum and rejection and the beginnings of a recession in the Republic.

That doesn't mean the issue has gone away.

Fianna Fáil, which registered as a political party in Northern Ireland in December 2007, is still consulting with interested individuals and organisations.

But any decision to organise and contest elections in Northern Ireland would have to be taken at its party conference or Ard Fheis.

And that, senior sources agree, is still some way off.