Are Peter Robinson and Gerry Adams Northern Irelands untouchables?
The big question which now looms over Northern Ireland in the wake of two extraordinary stories — allegations of the Robinsons’ sexual and financial improprieties and Gerry Adams’s difficulties over his brother Liam’s alleged sexual abuse of his daughter Aine — is this: is the political settlement which emerged from the peace process robust enough to survive? The attempted murder of a Catholic police officer yesterday morning when a bomb exploded under his car was an unwelcome and stark reminder of the ghosts which haunt Northern Ireland’s journey out of conflict. When Tony Blair’s Government took a strategic decision to give up on Ulster’s centre-ground and concentrate on building peace by domesticating the extremists of Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party it understood that the strength of the personalities of those parties’ leaders would be crucial to success. Gerry Adams was for decades the hidden ace card of Whitehall mandarins seeking a solution to the Troubles. Identifie
