Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): Fianna Fáil took another step towards becoming a 32-county political force on Friday when Taoiseach Bertie Ahern revealed that Ireland's largest party has registered with the Electoral Commission in Northern Ireland.
Ahern also announced the formal affiliation of two northern branches, each named after founding figures of the United Irishmen: the William Drennan Cumann at Queen's University Belfast, and the Watty Graham Cumann at the University of Ulster in Derry.
It remains unclear how the latest Fianna Fáil moves will affect the SDLP, the northern nationalist party which has hitherto enjoyed the support of Irish Governments of all persuasions.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan announced the formation of a working group on all-Ireland links last month at a party conference where opinion was, according to one report, strongly in favour of a Fianna Fáil merger.
However, Durkan received a warning against any such move at a recent meeting with Enda Kenny, leader of the Republic's main opposition party, Fine Gael. "The SDLP membership need to know that if they decide to enter into an exclusive or formal relationship with one party, then the SDLP's relationships with the other parties in the south will change very fundamentally," Kenny said. "Such a move would, I believe, be politically damaging to the SDLP in the long term."
An SDLP spokesman confirmed to OurKingdom that Deputy Leader Alasdair McDonnell had been present during the Taoiseach's speech on Friday, but emphasised that talks about north-south links were also underway with other parties. However, pressure for a Fianna Fáil link-up appeared to be building this weekend, as Ivan Cooper, one of the SDLP's founders and a former minister in the 1974 power-sharing executive, came out in favour of the idea.
"I favour an alliance because Fianna Fáil is coming north and it would be wrong to see them competing for votes with the SDLP," Cooper said. "They should have a strong relationship and work together as a political force. It's also attractive because it means this alliance is part of an all-Ireland organised party." The situation is complicated by a growing body of opinion calling for the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists to leave the Stormont Executive and form an opposition coalition. The Ulster Unionists would look upon an SDLP-Fianna Fáil merger with some suspicion, while Fianna Fáil would almost certainly prefer to have a Minister in the Executive in any case.
The major partners in the executive, Sinn Féin and the DUP, have yet to show much evidence that they can deliver a substantive policy agenda together, but there is little sign of any immediate challenge to their dominance. On the nationalist side, that is unlikely to change until the uncertainties around the future of the SDLP are resolved.
