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And even if someone did raise questions either in government or in the Assembly the government was so dominated by the two main parties (DUP and SF) that they could easily block or dismiss anything. Consequently, we have a major party of power-sharing government that appears to be little more than a terrorist front with major criminal assets behind it, conducting government behind closed doors, with no records kept or other power-sharing parties being informed. Burned: the inside story of the "cash for ash" scandal and Northern Ireland's secretive new elite: by Sam McBride, Newbridge, Merrion Press, 2019, 409 pp., ISBN 978-1785372698 SF seem happy to be back in government with their arch foes - the DUP and all the other parties content to be in a power-sharing government led by parties whose past record of government appears less than pristine. [Extracted from the article]

When John Major told the House of Commons on November 1, 1993, that it would turn his stomach to talk with the Provisional IRA, he must have felt a certain queasiness even as the words left his lips. John Hume (conducting his own secret talks with Gerry Adams) tried to explain the Sinn Féin position in terms a British parliamentarian could understand. The talks got nowhere.) The IRA, however, also had an interest in sitting down with the British, in essence asking the same questions of them in reverse. [Extracted from the article]