Tommy Gallagher was vital member of SDLP Good Friday Agreement team in 1998

Looking back to 1998, just after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), now retired but still highly respected Belleek/Garrison politician, Tommy Gallagher, has mixed views on its success. He believes that reform of the Agreement should happen soon.

A former SDLP MLA for Fermanagh-south Tyrone, who was an integral part of his party’s negotiation team during those days of intensive discussions, shared his thoughts, hopes and aspirations for the future.

Twenty five years ago, he had told this reporter: “The last days of the negotiations were days of nail biting anxiety for the whole country, not least for those of us involved directly in the process. When the break came on Good Friday I emerged from Castle buildings convinced we had got the best deal for all in the community.”

Today, having survived a near fatal road crash in 2018 on the Pettigo Road near Kesh, Tommy has been contemplating his views with 20/20 hindsight.

Reflecting on the GFA, also known as the Belfast Agreement, a quarter of a century later, he told the Democrat:

“It certainly has not lived up to its potential. That is something that I find disappointing.

“It certainly has not lived up to its potential in the sense that under the DUP and Sinn Féin there hasn’t been a great deal of activity on North-South arrangements, just the bare minimum.

“Certainly for the border areas, that is something that I would like improved. As an arrangement for providing equality and opportunity for the two main traditions here in Northern Ireland, it is still, in my view, the bedrock for developing that.

DONEGAL DEMOCRAT 25 YEARS AGO: Good Friday agreement reaction from Tommy Gallagher of the SDLP back in April of 1998

“While political progress hasn't been all that we would have liked, I still hope that can be improved. There is potential for review of the agreement and I think that is probably overdue and I would like to see it happening soon.”

“Back then, as far as we were concerned within the SDLP. it was never meant to be a document that was just set in concrete, times change and society never stays static anyway and the political people have to move with social changes.

He said that one of the great achievements was that it brought about verifiable decommissioning, “albeit a bit late in the day” and Northern Ireland today had new policing arrangements.

“On that front there definitely has been a big change. Right throughout Ireland, people are much more at ease now. Way back then was violence and all the fear and anxiety as well as the tragedy that accompanied it,” he said.

Good Friday agreement signatures including retired politician and former MLA Tommy Gallagher of the SDLP

He was not of the opinion that his party lost out electorally in the ‘bigger scheme of things’ after the GFA.

The former MLA from Belleek Tommy Gallagher was especially vocal when it came to cross border issues between Donegal and his native Fermanagh and Donegal

He explained: “What happened there and one of the retrograde moves that happened was the time of the St Andrew’s agreement when the two governments were trying their best to get both Sinn Féin and the DUP committed to the Good Friday Agreement and everything that flowed from it. Prior to that and set out in the agreement, when it came to appointing a First Minister and a Deputy First Minister, they were elected and had to be elected by both Unionist and Nationalist. That is the way it worked initially.

Stormont in Northern Ireland has seen busier days with no Assembly at present

“The SDLP would have supported David Trimble (Ulster Unionist Party) and his party supported Seamus Mallon from the SDLP. At St Andrews for some reason their governments set aside the election of a First Minister and Deputy First Minister and they allowed the two stronger parties at that time (Sinn Féin) , to just go in and nominate their own people for that position.

“That in turn fed into the political situation with the result that it weakened the middle ground and people tended then to vote for the other two parties in greater numbers. That is one of the things that I would hope to see reformed.”