Ahern and Blair hope to revitalise NI process
Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair meet today to try to find a way of breathing new life into the faltering efforts to restore devolution to Northern Ireland.
As ever, the problems surround IRA weapons and whether the group will get rid of them - and in a way that satisfies unionists.
The two premiers meet on the sidelines of the European Council meeting in Brussels to try to map out their next move.
Day-long talks between the political parties and Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy and Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern yesterday failed to resolve the issue.
DUP leader Paisley is insisting on photographic evidence of IRA weapons’ destruction which he says is needed to satisfy the unionist “man in the street”.
Sinn Féin and the IRA have branded the idea a non-starter and a humiliation too far.
After the seven hours of talks yesterday at Hillsborough Castle, Co Down, the bizarre possibility was raised of the IRA finally doing what unionists have been demanding for years – getting rid of all its weapons – and unionists still refusing to share power in government with Sinn Féin.
Mr Paisley claimed the IRA was considering destroying its weapons without the photographic proof he was demanding.
He said such an act was outside the deal the governments and parties had been trying to put together in recent weeks and could have “serious consequences” for the DUP’s attitude to other elements of the agreement to restore devolution.
Sinn Féin chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said Mr Paisley was so intent on humiliating the IRA he was ready to throw away the chance of progress.
He said the DUP leader giving the IRA an ultimatum not to deal conclusively with its weapons was “an absurd situation which would be laughable if it were not so serious”.
Mr McLaughlin was careful not to comment on whether Mr Paisley’s claims were correct. But he said the situation was now the “stuff of Alice in Wonderland”.
He declared: “It must appear to many, including surely some within his own party, that Ian Paisley’s fixation on humiliating republicans now stands in the way of finding a resolution to the current problem.”
