Irish Republicanism in Northern Ireland - Republicans in The Power-sharing Government Since 2007

Republicans in The Power-sharing Government Since 2007

Sinn Féin delegates voted at their Ard Fheis in January 2007 to recognize and fully support the Police Service of Northern Ireland, a move which was seen as opening the door to power-sharing with Unionists. In Northern Ireland's Assembly elections of 2007, Sinn Féin which is the largest Irish nationalist political party in the north made significant gains and remained the second largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly. While the hardline Unionist party, the Democratic Unionist Party or DUP remained the largest.

In a move that surprised the entire world, DUP leader Reverend Ian Paisley announced that he would accept appointment as First Minister of Northern Ireland and form a power-sharing government with his arch rivals Sinn Féin as was set out in the St. Andrews Agreement. He had long refused to do so since Sinn Féin was linked to the Provisional IRA, an organization which before 2005 had been engaged in illegal activity. For his entire career as a hardline Protestant cleric known for his Anti-Catholicism and as a Unionist politician he had opposed any form of political power-sharing with Irish nationalist politicians, cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland or the efforts of moderate unionist governments in Northern Ireland to bolster the interests of the north's Irish Catholic and Nationalist minority.

However with the compromises made by Irish nationalists since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Rev. Paisley was left with little choice but to cooperate with the political representatives of the nationalist community. If he had have delayed further on forming a power-sharing government with Sinn Féin it would have been left to the governments of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland to govern the north directly without the involvement of northern politicians, this was something that Unionists in the north did not want to happen.

Sinn Féin members were given four cabinet positions in the Northern Ireland Executive. The position of Deputy First Minister went to Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin members were also given charge over the departments of regional development, education and agriculture giving their party a significant amount of influence in Northern Ireland's new government. The moderate nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party was given charge of a single department, social development based on their representation in the Assembly.