Durkan: ‘limit the damage’ to peace process
Both the Taoiseach and the SDLP leader, Mark Durkan are in London today for meetings with the British prime minister.
They are trying to avert a collapse in the power-sharing executive at Stormont.
On his way into his meeting with Blair SDLP leader Durkan said it is important to limit the damage caused to the peace process by this latest crisis.
“What we have to do is make sure that doing is done in the next few days that cant be undone. We have to make sure we minimise the damage but more important than that we have to optimise the possibility of progress," he said.
"That means we create circumstances where the least damage is done to the institutions of the Agreement. If it is to be suspension then some of the institutions fall into suspension but other aspects of the Agreement stay.”
The Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, is due to attend the British Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth today.
He is expected to repeat calls for Sinn Fein's immediate expulsion if the IRA doesn't disband by the weekend.
Junior Finance Minister, Tom Parlon, who is in the North for his first North-South ministerial council meeting, has said it would be a shame for economics and not just politics if the institutions collapsed.
“There has been massive investment and clearly there was a major lack of investment prior to the Good Friday Agreement," he said.
