 The SDLP's loss of ground to Sinn Féin in the 1985 local elections in Northern Ireland was attributed in part to the "out, out, out" response to the Forum it had championed.Journalist Brian Feeney suggests that Sinn Féin's "active abstention", where those elected in the 1982 Assembly elections acted as local spokespeople in the media, was more effective than the SDLP's policy of sending its representatives to the Dublin forum.The Forum has been seen retrospectively as a first acknowledgement by the political parties in the Republic of the need to engage with Ulster unionism and "North-South relationships" rather than ignoring them in favour of the "East-West" relationship with the British government in London.