It is becoming an annual pre-Christmas event for a crisis to emerge in Northern Ireland that threatens to undermine the institutions set up by the power-sharing agreement.
Last year it involved alleged IRA paramilitary activity and the year before it was the failure to reach agreement among the main parties about flags and other politically sensitive issues.
Over the past week, the cash-for-ash controversy has prompted the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP to propose a no-confidence motion in Arlene Foster, the first minister of Northern Ireland.
Ms Foster denies any wrongdoing in a renewable heat incentive (RHI) scheme, even though she was the minister in charge of the measure when it was introduced. She refused to stand down on the basis that nothing had been proven in relation to the scheme, which encouraged participants to burn wood pellets and other alternatives to fossil fuels. The inherent flaw in the scheme was that users were rewarded for the amount of alternative fuel they used, which, it is alleged, in some cases meant that buildings were heated unnecessarily.
Jonathan Bell, the DUP MLA, made a series of allegations against Ms Foster last week. The first minister, in turn, made allegations against Mr Bell including that he had physically intimidated her and a number of female colleagues. Mr Bell has been suspended from the party even though nothing against him has been proven and he denies all allegations.
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Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, has been in Belfast for the past few days spearheading his party’s response to the unfolding crisis. He has said that the first minister should stand aside until an investigation into the scheme is completed.
Jeffrey Donaldson, a DUP MP, was on RTE’s Morning Ireland on Monday and criticised Mr Adams’s position on the affair.
Mr Donaldson cited the Brian Stack controversy which has engulfed Sinn Fein south of the border for the past three weeks. Mr Stack was a prison officer murdered by the IRA in 1983.
Mr Adams accompanied Austin and Oliver Stack, Brian’s sons, to an undisclosed location in 2013, where a senior IRA figure provided them with a limited amount of detail about their father’s murder.
Mr Adams refused to disclose the identity of the IRA member even though there is an investigation into the Stack murder. He also dismissed calls to stand down as president of Sinn Fein.
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Mr Donaldson quite rightly said that this was a double standard by Mr Adams.
It also raises profound issues for politics in Northern Ireland, such as transparency and accountability, which will have far-reaching economic implications.
Over the past year or so the details of Nama’s sale of Project Eagle have caused a considerable amount of reputational damage to Northern Ireland. Project Eagle was a Northern Ireland portfolio of loans that was sold to Cerberus, a US investment fund, in April 2014 for €1.6 billion.
It is alleged that there was a £15 million fixer fee involved in the transaction, which was to be split between Frank Cushnahan, a Belfast-based businessman and former adviser to Nama; a Belfast law firm and a number of other parties. Mr Cushnahan and the other parties deny any wrongdoing.
Mick Wallace, the independent TD, and Jamie Bryson, a Belfast-based blogger, both separately alleged that Peter Robinson, the former first minister of Northern Ireland, also stood to share in the fixer fee. Mr Robinson has strenuously denied this claim.
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The Oireachtas public accounts committee, the Stormont finance committee and law enforcement agencies in the UK and the US are investigating the sale. It should be noted that so far there is no evidence that any laws have been broken.
All of these developments must be looked at in the context of broader political and economic changes in Northern Ireland.
Stormont has secured a commitment from Westminster that it can reduce the corporate tax rate in Northern Ireland to 12.5 per cent in April 2018, subject to certain conditions. Both Sinn Fein and the DUP argued that the power sharing executive needed full autonomy over the corporate tax rate, so that it would have much greater flexibility in attracting foreign direct investment.
The fiscal regime is an important consideration for potential investors in any country, but there are other factors such as confidence in the government and confidence in the primacy of the rule of law.
The Project Eagle saga has not done any favours to investors’ perceptions of Northern Ireland.
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In the interests of accountability and transparency and in view of the seriousness of Mr Bell’s allegations, Ms Foster should stand aside during the investigation into the RHI scheme.
Because of Northern Ireland’s troubled past, it faces a greater challenge than most other OECD countries to attract investment. That is why it has to be seen to be doing everything according to the rule book. That is why the first minister should set an example and it is also a very compelling reason as to why Mr Adams should also consider his position.