‘YES!’, was the answer of an irritated caller on today’s BBC Talkback, who said devolution could never work and would never return.

It has been exactly 10 months since Sinn Féin walked out of the Northern Ireland Executive, resulting in the collapse of the power-sharing institutions at Stormont for the fourth time since their inception.

Any whispers of a deal that surfaced last week were quickly drowned out when the Secretary of State, James Brokenshire, announced that a deal had again failed to be reached and the newest deadline for parties to reach agreement was set for the week commencing November 6. If a deal cannot not be made, Brokenshire will move an Appropriations Bill, and set a Budget for Northern Ireland.

Despite how this is packaged, London managing our finances is, for all intent and purposes, direct rule.

After a rocky start, three previous collapses, four separate agreements and goodness knows how many American diplomats later, we are back where we started. In fact, we are in a worse off position than we have ever been since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

Why?

People will have very different views on this; views that range from historical to structural, and even at times will be viewed purely through a sectarian lens. 

However, peace has come to Northern Ireland and has been instilled in the mindset of many of its people; despite being housed apart, educated separately and too often used as pawns by political agendas, many are living and thriving as a post-conflict society.

Devolution has not failed Northern Ireland, politicians have failed devolution and, as a result, are failing the people of Northern Ireland.

Devolution is only the realistic political arrangement by which parties can govern in the long-term. But it the relevant mindsets are lost on it, it cannot function as it was intended.

Despite power-sharing being overwhelmingly endorsed by the people of Northern Ireland in 1998, the DUP and Sinn Féin have recklessly and unapologetically unravelled ten years of progress in the last ten months; the DUP for continuing to push big house unionism against a fragile shared future, and for Sinn Féin’s incompetence in letting it fly.

It has been shouted from the roof tops by all other parties – and recognised by peoples from across both communities – that none of the issues keeping devolution down are insurmountable.

The power-sharing institutions were by their very design a compromise, and compromise is what it will take to restore them and see them flourish. Flourish they can. The previous ten years of government in Northern Ireland are testament that for now, devolution is the answer. In fact, it is the only answer.

History will not forgive those who are holding it to ransom because they are too bitter to reach out a hand or too uncomfortable with the job of getting on and governing.