Few want a return to direct rule from London, but there seems little hope of an imminent breakthrough
the Oval football stadium are greeted by a tall, dark-green stand. From seats at the top, supporters of Glentoranget a view of the gantry cranes of Belfast’s shipyard. But the rest of the stadium is much smaller, and at two ends there are no stands at all, giving the ground a peculiarly lopsided feel. The concrete is chipped, parts of the stadium are rusting and the crowd is occasionally drowned out by a plane landing at the airport next door.
Civil servants have had to be considerably less bold. Last year the Northern Irish high court overturned a plan to build an incinerator on the edge of Belfast, on the basis that a minister had already rejected the proposal, thus setting a limit on what bureaucrats could do in the absence of politicians. Afterwards, Westminster passed a law allowing Northern Irish government departments to make decisions in the “public interest” if they had to.
Civil servants are acutely aware of the delicate role they must play. “A typical meeting with a politician, if I’m being absolutely frank, is them complaining about the things we’ve done and complaining about the things we haven’t done,” says one. In places where reforms had been set out by the executive before it collapsed, like those to reshape the health system, bureaucrats have some leeway. Most departments have no such luck, however.
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