The Foster/O’Neill relationship is one that is important for us all.

SKY News Ireland Correspondent, David Blevins held a joint interview with Arlene Foster and Michele O’Neill which was aired this morning.

RTE’s Tommie Gorman has an interesting piece online today about the relationship between the two and some of the previous power-sharing bids in the past which is worth a read. 

When devolution returned in January this year, there was no fan fare. On that rainy Saturday standing in the Great Hall, all of us who are nerds were watching but out in the public, people simply shrugged their shoulders and thought that it was about time that MLAs got back to work. I will admit to watching the new ministers walk out of the chamber to meet their new civil servants and wondering just how this was all going to work out.

The former Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo once said “you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose”. In early January, nobody was talking about Coronavirus, rather we were counting down the clock towards Brexit and focusing on the growing crisis in our health service. Within just two months the new Executive was on an effective war footing with the academic year being up ended and large scale re-organisations of hospitals, that in a normal environment would take years, happened within weeks.

Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill found themselves as the leaders of Northern Ireland’s response to the greatest health challenge that the planet has faced in a century. Hard to imagine that the last time the world faced something on this scale, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic didn’t even exist as entities.

A crisis is often the best time to make radical changes and shift the direction of government policy. The Executive has already made changes that will pose questions for the structure of our health service, education system, transport network and welfare system. How this all works out in the longer term, I am not sure but one thing has happened and that’s the working relationship between Foster and O’Neill. The two have been able to disagree with one another and keep the show on the road, but more importantly keep it functioning. Before when there was a crisis, we would go months with few decisions being taken along with some very unproductive periods for the Executive.

In contrast, during the month of March it was hard to keep up with the scale of decisions coming out of Stormont and the flurry of activity that has continued since. Aided by some able ministers sitting around the table, there has been a steady pace of announcements and responses for the particular needs of sections of our society. They have not been perfect by any means, there are challenges around issues such as care homes, poverty and employment for the future. But on the whole, there has not been paralysis within the Executive and they have grappled with big decisions, instead of not deciding at all. If you think for a moment we have had half of it with a direct rule minister, you are kidding yourself.

The Executive will have more challenges ahead, navigating a recession and Brexit. But i have always believed that if devolution handled this crisis well, it would bed down roots for a generation. The five party Executive are going to disagree (it would be odd if they didn’t), but the process of taking decisions and executing policies is the key. The period of devolution fell because it was plagued with paralysis. As Tony Blair once observed, people will forgive a wrong decision, but they won’t forgive not deciding.

If a functioning Executive with decisions being taken and responses being developed are what was meant by “no return to the status quo” then sign me up. This working relationship between the Arlene and Michelle is an important one for us all and here’s hoping it keeps developing in the years head.