Ahern urged to get tough on unionists
An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern will today face Sinn Féin demands for the Irish and British governments to take a firmer line with unionists in an effort to revive power-sharing.
With Mr Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair believed to be working on a roadmap for the North's parties to get back to the Stormont Assembly, Sinn Féin leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were preparing to meet the Taoiseach and deliver a "get tough" message.
Ahead of today’s talks in government buildings in Dublin, Sinn Féin’s chief negotiator Martin McGuinness said his party believed both governments had failed to take a lead in resisting attempts by the Reverend Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists to destroy the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr McGuinness observed: “They have no strategy for the implementation of the Agreement or for facing down negative unionism.
“In fact, they are now considering proposals, which centre on a shadow Assembly, to accommodate the DUP’s refusal to accept the power-sharing arrangements set out in the Good Friday Agreement.
“These proposals are totally unacceptable to Sinn Féin and, in our view, it is a mistake for the government to go down this road.
“We will be telling both the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister over the next two days when we meet them that this approach will only further encourage DUP intransigence and represent a real threat to the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement.”
Sinn Féin will meet Tony Blair in Downing Street tomorrow.
Mr Ahern is also due to meet SDLP representatives tomorrow in Dublin to hear their concerns about the current round of talks.
It is believed that Sinn Féin and the SDLP could snub a shadow Assembly which would see the 108 MLAs return to Stormont for debates and possibly to scrutinise the work of the British ministerial team in the Northern Ireland Office.
Both parties are insistent that there must be an immediate bid to revive the power-sharing institutions.
However the Reverend Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists do not believe that in the short term the political climate is right for unionists to re-enter government with Sinn Féin, even after last year’s declaration by the IRA that it is ending its armed campaign and has completed its disarmament programme.
