Northern Ireland Is Sinking Into a ‘Profound Crisis’

Northern Ireland Is Sinking Into a ‘Profound Crisis’
Since that deal, known as the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland has been run mostly by a devolved regional government
that must, in effect, be led by a coalition between the region’s largest nationalist party and its largest unionist counterpart.
But in January this delicate arrangement was upended when Sinn Fein, which hopes for a united Ireland one day, withdrew
from a coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party, which wants Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom.
In the absence of a Northern Irish finance minister, the British government has already made the first step toward "direct
rule" — passing an interim budget for Northern Ireland on Monday to ensure that salaries can be paid until March.
The specter of Brexit compounds the crisis: When the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, border controls may be reintroduced between Northern
and southern Ireland for the first time since the Good Friday Agreement was introduced.
Social Democratic said that I don’t mean to be dramatic or anything, but I do think the Good Friday Agreement is effectively dead,
"Why would it not be great for Sinn Fein to be running things?" asked Mairtin O Muilleoir,
the Sinn Fein finance minister at the time of the coalition’s collapse.