Question: Since becoming leader of your party do you think you have been able to escape the shadow of your predecessor, John Hume?

Mark Durkan: It was never a question of escaping John’s shadow but obviously there are new challenges for the leadership and the party at large.

This is a new environment for us in the context of more peaceful times, what we have to do is be more competitive in this more competitive environment.

Question: After your party’s pivotal role in bringing about the Good Friday Agreement and bringing in the extremists do you resent falling back electorally?

Mark Durkan: I’m not a golfer but I know golfers say you have to play the ball where it lies. Yes, there are things that are frustrating. The fact that the agreement hasn’t been fully and properly implemented is frustrating.

Yes, the fact that parties are putting problems in the way of fulfilling the agreement and are able to profit from the very process they have tried to stop is frustrating.

But that isn’t going to make us cynical or negative. The fact is we have to take ourselves forward and all the parties have the responsibility to take this whole country forward.

Durkan on the Good Friday Agreement

Question: Given that the Good Friday agreement has undoubtedly brought about huge improvements in the lives of everyone in Northern Ireland how do explain the increasing success of the two hardest line parties?

Mark Durkan: Obviously things are now a lot better than they were but things still aren’t as good as they could or should be. While I, like everyone else, am glad that things aren’t as bad as they were that does not absolve us from the responsibility of making things as good as they could be.

The process should have been the agreement and the agreement should have been process, unfortunately we’ve ended up with the agreement on one hand and the process on the other.

That gap opened up because of the delay in getting the institutions set up, then with the instability of those institutions and the lack of progress on decommissioning and the government’s focus on that.

We found ourselves in a situation where political posturing and a tug of war threatened the institutions and stalled the agreement. The way the government managed that process was not the way we arrived at the agreement. It was a more selective and exclusive set of negotiations and political positioning where the government focused on the problem parties.

That is Sinn Fein on the one hand because of their relevance to the decommissioning issue and the UUP on the other hand because of their relevance to the stability of the institutions.

That flawed approach has done damage to the agreement. It hasn’t just interrupted the process it has corrupted it. We want things to move forward cohesively so there’s no more of this incrementalism, fudge and side dealing. We need to go back to working with the one deal that people endorsed which was the Good Friday agreement itself.

Durkan on Sinn Fein

Question: Sinn Fein has sought to marginalise the SDLP and recent election results seem to show they are succeeding. Is that the case and what can you do about it?

Mark Durkan: The fact is the long term approach of Sinn Fein has been to attack the SDLP’s positions and then adopt them. Sinn Fein has been successfully stealing SDLP clothes in the context of the peace process and in that more benign environment they have obviously been more successful electorally.

What we must not do is abandon our policies, just because someone’s stealing the clothes from your line doesn’t mean you move house. What we have to do is be more distinctive in terms or our own approaches. At least you know the SDLP are the real thing, we have always stood for the things we do now.

Question: Sinn Fein have consistently made out that the SDLP are collaborating with unionists by sitting on the police board. Is it difficult to tread the line between representing your constituents and supporting supposedly tainted bodies like the police board?

Mark Durkan: Sinn Fein used to claim the SDLP wanted to collaborate with the unionists just because we advocated power sharing and believed in an assembly with an inclusive executive. Of course, now they have adopted that position.

In relation to the policing board we insisted on their being a clear implementation threshold as far as the Patten recommendations were concerned. Having achieved that threshold we then recognised that we had to use the policing board to drive through the remaining Patten recommendations in terms of restructuring the police and changing the whole performance profile.

The board became the key agent of those changes. Sinn Fein say they will only join the board when all the recommendations have been fully implemented but that’s like saying you wouldn’t take part in any of the institutions until every bit of the agreement is fully implemented.

Just as the assembly and executive are the means of implementing the agreement, so too is the policing board. We’ve proved that by the work we’ve done on the board which has been made all the harder by Sinn Fein aiding and abetting anti-Patten unionists by staying off the policing board and thereby giving their two seats to anti-Patten unionists.

That made are work harder but it did not stop us getting rid of Ronnie Flanagan against the wishes of the prime minister and the secretary of state and we were able to ensure that they weren’t successful in burying the ombudsman’s report into the Omagh investigation. We’ve also delivered Patten-plus changes in relation to the restructuring of special branch and in terms of recruitment numbers.

Question: Do you anticipate another act of IRA decommissioning?

Mark Durkan: The logic of what Sinn Fein leaders are saying is that there is no republican reason for the IRA to exist, so I say why keep giving unionists an excuse?

They’ve made that argument for a number of years, which has been disputed by Sinn Fein, but that is just the language Gerry Adams has been using recently.

I would hope that this isn’t just phrase play from the Sinn Fein leadership which is what we’ve had in the past and commentators get very excited by different language being used.

Language in itself is not enough. What we need is decisive movement and the IRA is in a position, and not before time, to make the moves they need for completion. I want them to move from the ceasefire to a disarming situation.

The details of that are not going to be helped by me saying ‘yes I expect IRA decommissioning’ or I’m demanding that because when I, or unionists, or whoever say that it usually leads to a negative response from the IRA. The fact is we need movement but we also need real, positive and decisive movement on the part of unionist leaders as well.

Durkan on the British government

Question: Has the British government played into the hands of the hardliners by focusing on their specific concerns without consulting fully with the wider community?

Mark Durkan: The fact is people from all sections of the community voted for the Good Friday Agreement itself.

That’s why the proper working of the institutions, not just the assembly and the executive but the north-south ministerial council, the British/Irish council, the civic forum etcetera should have been at a premium. Instead what we found was the importance and relevance of that work was relegated in the stand-off between the UUP and Sinn Fein.

It threatened the agreement itself and that has brought us into suspension four times, the current one heading for two years in October.

To my mind that’s no way to manage a process of implementing an agreement that was endorsed by so many people. If we’d have been managing things we would have done things differently. Certainly we wouldn’t have adopted an approach that advantaged parties who were reneging on one or other part of the agreement.

Sinn Fein has been able to play it as if there they are the issue, as if they are the playmakers because the unionist preconditions have focused on Sinn Fein.

The fact that the government focused on the decommissioning question gave them a much bigger platform and meant that less and less attention focused on who was actually making the agreement work and delivering.

Question: Tony Blair has been intensely engaged in the process at times but then seems more distanced when there are big problems. Do you think he has shown sufficient leadership?

Mark Durkan: In fairness to Tony Blair he has given an enormous amount of time to the Northern Ireland situation and British Irish relations. I would not criticise him at all as far as his concentration and time allocation is concerned.

Where I have differences with him is in relation to his approaches and priorities. When there are problems those problems should be handled in the same way the agreement was reached. That is in a negotiated, upfront, inclusive way with all the parties discussing all the issues.

If the agreement is meant to be about inclusion then that is what should inform the political management of the agreement. Unfortunately the British and Irish governments took a different approach which I can understand; they thought it would be easier to solve problems by concentrating on the problem parties. The fact is that this has sustained and compounded those problems and weakened the agreement.

We are in real difficulty and I feel that Tony Blair, based on conversations I’ve had with him, is someone who now feels enough is enough, that he can’t keep kicking the can in front of him and that we need to have clear and decisive outcomes. We’re in a new situation we can’t keep ordering more process.

Durkan on the impending peace talks

Question: What do you think can be achieved in the impending crunch peace talks?

Mark Durkan: I want to be positive but you have to go by experience in these dealings and experience says expectation and hype has not been matched by outcome and fulfilment.

We go into these talks determined to get the institutions restored with certainty, not just as a temporary measure. People have to know that where we have progress on institutions and paramilitaries it’s not just going to unravel as it has done before.

Question: If these talks fail will hard line elements get stronger and stronger?

Mark Durkan: There are lots of different ways to measure success and failure.

I do not think we can afford to continue to sleep walk our way through suspension and direct rule.

My first concern is not what the electoral consequences resulting from a lack of success and continued suspension is. I’m concerned that the parties here share responsibilities for public policy and they are not left in the hands of direct rulers.

My fear is that people are getting more and more cynical about the political process because of its continuing failure to deliver.

Question: If the devolved institutions are resurrected how will they work with the DUP as the largest party?

Mark Durkan: The SDLP have worked with all other parties in the institutions. As finance minister I had to deal directly with people of all parties in the executive and the assembly. I had to negotiate and get agreement for setting budgets with everyone even when the DUP wasn’t participating.

I can work with everyone; the real issue is whether the DUP is willing to recognise the agreement has a significant mandate of its own. A higher mandate than any referendum on staying within the UK would have. The real issue is whether the DUP will work with everyone else as set out in the terms of the agreement.