Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill are leading an Executive whose fragile foundations are being exposed at the worst time

In ‘A Journal of the Plague Year’ which told of events more than half a century earlier, he wrote with optimism about how people had been reconciled in the midst of adversity.

“Here we may observe,” he said, “and I hope it will not be amiss to take notice of it, that a near view of death would soon reconcile men of good principles one to another, and that it is chiefly owing to our easy situation in life and our putting these things far from us that our breaches are fomented, ill blood continued, prejudices, breach of charity and of Christian union so much kept and far carried on among us as it is. Another plague year would reconcile all these differences...”

Anyone who two months ago believed that the prospect of death on a terrible scale would banish historic enmities from the corridors of Stormont will by now have been disabused of that hope.

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More significantly, questions about the competence and coherence of this Executive, which have hung over it since January’s sudden decision by the DUP and Sinn Féin to re-enter power-sharing, now have a long list of unfavourable answers.

Increasingly those who question whether this form of mandatory coalition government can work range far beyond those recalcitrant unionists or dissident republicans who always opposed this form of government.

If the greatest test of a system of government is how it handles crisis, then this form of government is being tested – perhaps to ultimate destruction if this crisis goes on for many months or years – in a way which is exposing its inherent weaknesses precisely because this pandemic is not in itself a tribal issue.

Any fair minded person would accept that there will inevitably be difficulties and failures in any government’s response to an emergency of this magnitude. It would therefore be churlish to imply that failures in themselves demonstrate that an administration – much less a system of government – has failed.

But the multitude of Stormont’s difficulties, the self-inflicted nature of many of them and the sluggishness of this Executive to be able to agree a response points to a massive problem.

Sinn Féin and the DUP have said that coronavirus is – obviously – not an orange and green issue. But the public are being asked to believe that it is entirely coincidental that politicians whose raison d’être is advocating constitutional politics are now advocating something which fits with their side of the tribal divide, with Sinn Féin repeatedly calling for an all-island approach and advocating following Dublin while the DUP overwhelmingly follows developments in London and defends the various strategies followed by Boris Johnson’s government.

It is natural for politicians steeped in ideological colours to instinctively believe the best of their side, but it undermines the credibility of their insistence that they are wholly guided by the experts when the experts they endorse are those who align with their world view.

However, while there is a clear ideological divide between the DUP and Sinn Féin over whether to follow London or Dublin, there is a sharp distinction between how the two parties have approached the question of Executive unity.

The DUP has largely endorsed what other ministers are doing and, perhaps fearful of devolution falling again and wary of more years in the wilderness, has generally attempted to play down their disputes.

Several Stormont sources who are sceptical of Arlene Foster’s judgement and ability have privately spoken of her restraint over recent weeks.

By contrast, Sinn Féin has consistently occupied a position of GovOpposition – fully in the government but publicly criticising, almost on a daily basis, what that government is doing. The party, which until recently argued for politicians to “take the politics out of health”, has repeatedly criticised Health Minister Robin Swann to the extent that an outsider reading Sinn Fein press releases over recent weeks might assume that the party was in opposition.

But Michelle O’Neill’s response to that criticism – saying that she genuinely disagrees with Mr Swann’s approach and believes it is her “moral duty” to “call out” what he is doing – itself reveals how this crisis exposes the fragility of Stormont’s foundations.

Mandatory coalition – in which the parties representing 84 of Stormont’s 90 MLAs are entitled to ministries – shackles together not only tribal opposites, but ideological opposites.

Economic socialists are harnessed up with capitalists, social conservatives are asked to drive forward with social liberals and advocates of big government find themselves working in union with quasi-libertarians.

In those circumstances, it is not only unsurprising that the cart of government being drawn by such contradictory horses does not proceed smoothly; it is a wonder that it has proceeded at all.

So far this administration has taken almost a month to come up with a list of essential businesses – and then published the wrong list.

The first and deputy first ministers have stood side by side while openly contradicting each other over which businesses should open.

Supermarkets have been unable to offer priority online delivery slots to the vulnerable because Stormont has been unable to give them accurate details. The Finance Minister was about to start to transfer £170 million for personal protection equipment from China when he realised that it wasn’t coming and it then became clear there had never been a signed contract.

Testing for the virus has taken weeks to get to the point where even key workers can all be tested in order to keep them on the front line.

The Executive has spent an entire week unable to agree whether grieving individuals should be allowed to visit graveyards.

This week junior minister Declan Kearney claimed that some unionists were putting “corporate greed over public welfare” in wanting the lockdown relaxed. That attack was calculated, coming in Sinn Féin’s newspaper and endorsed by its leader.

On Thursday, Mrs Foster, apparently seeing the issue through the prism of a Union Flag, told The View that it would be “quite wrong” to stop plane loads of people – who may be carrying the virus – from coming to Belfast from London, despite the fact that in an emergency it is common for movement restrictions to be imposed within a country.

Far from vanishing, such disputes will likely multiply as debate over easing the lockdown grows.

The Executive appears to want credit for something as basic as agreeing on the need to save lives while remaining hopelessly and openly divided on how that should be done — while in Mr Kearney’s case impugning the motives of unidentified unionists.

Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci famously said: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Stormont’s symptoms suggest that this form of government may be dying. But there is no guarantee that what takes its place is the voluntary coalition which the most consistent critic of mandatory coalition – Jim Allister – would prefer.

A chaotic collapse of devolution in the midst of a pandemic could constitute the sort of seismic upheaval out of which hitherto fantastical constitutional change may become possible.

It would be surprising if some republicans – some of whom have been linked with the taking of human life, such is their commitment to Irish unity – are not pondering how on the eve of Northern Ireland’s centenary this crisis might enable their goal.

Plague can drive people together – and there has been evidence of it. But it can also drive people apart. If death on this scale cannot drive the Executive together, can anything?

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Alistair Bushe