Belfast Telegraph 02 December 2003  Peace deal 'has made things worse' By Noel McAdam, Political Correspondent THE Good Friday Agreement may have helped entrench the divisions in Northern Ireland it wants to reconcile, a new study claimed today. Just days after the Assembly election, which saw the DUP and Sinn Fein move ahead of the political rivals, a team of academics and researchers argued the Agreement "looks backward rather than forward" and has inadvertently helped make sectarian ideologies respectable. Ahead of the Government's review of the Agreement, due to get under way next month, the investigation called for a number of reforms, including Assembly voting designations and collective responsibility of Ministers. It came as Secretary of State Paul Murphy formally wrote to the main political parties asking for their initial ideas about the scope and format of the review. The paper, published by the Institute of Governance, Public Policy and Social Research concluded while Northern Ireland has enjoyed a degree of peace since the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994, it is still a far from normal society.  The "parity of esteem" for nationalism and unionism central to the Agreement had in effect conferred recognition and respectability upon sectarian ideologies.  "In so doing, it may have inadvertently perpetuated mistrust and social tensions, and discouraged an atmosphere of compromise and political risk-taking," the report went on.