Assembly talks 'a test of leadership'
The new round of talks aimed at reviving the Northern Ireland Assembly will be a test of leadership for the North’s politicians, Dermot Ahern insisted today.
Mr Ahern, who will join Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, for a series of talks with the Stormont Assembly parties said unionists and nationalists had a clear and stark choice to make for their constituents between progress and stasis.
“Allegations of Provisional (IRA) involvement in crime and leadership sanctioned illegal intelligence gathering cannot be glossed over,” the Foreign Minister said.
“The message must be borne home that the Irish people, in the first act of all-Ireland self-determination since 1918, voted for peaceful, democratic politics, free from such acts.
“We only ask that the Provisionals heed the will of the Irish people.
“Equally we ask that unionists show determined leadership now. We need to see a clear willingness to share power with nationalists.
“We need a real acceptance that equality is a fundamental right – not a gained concession – and that parity of esteem is not a luxury.”
With the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists insisting they will not meet Mr Ahern today to discus the internal affairs of the North, British and Irish government officials were playing down – ahead of the talks – expectations that they would result in a swift resumption of devolution.
A Northern Ireland Office spokesman said: “As the Secretary of State Peter Hain has been saying nobody is expecting the DUP to gallop into government with Sinn Féin.
“These are serious negotiations and not just simply a stocktaking exercise.
“I think both governments are encouraged by the level of engagement the parties are showing already.
“The DUP has produced some interesting ideas as have the UUP, the SDLP and Sinn Féin.
“There seems to be an acceptance that the Democratic deficit in the North cannot go on and people want to see their local politicians exercising power on the key decisions affecting the lives of the people of Northern Ireland.”
At their annual conference in Belfast on Saturday, the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists insisted they would not be rushed into a devolved government.
However, the party has suggested several options short of full-blown devolution which would see Assembly members exercising a scrutiny role of British ministers or running government departments through the Stormont committee system.
Following the publication last week of the eighth report of the Independent Monitoring Commission, which assesses paramilitary ceasefires, the DUP said its claims that IRA members were still involved in intelligence gathering, acts of violence and criminality show just why Sinn Féin is not a fit partner for a devolved government.
DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson also insisted his party would not be bounced into accepting the model of devolved government outlined in the Good Friday Agreement.
He told nationalists: “Read my lips – the Belfast Agreement is dead.”
As his party prepared for today’s talks, Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness urged the British and Irish governments to face up to those in unionism and the security forces intent on wrecking the peace process.
But he also insisted the coming months would be the most crucial and challenging since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
“In my view most people are fed up with the endless, repetitive circular arguments that pass for politics”, the Mid Ulster MP insisted.
“Today presents an opportunity to change all of this. Hard choices will soon have to be made by the DUP.”
Nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan insisted last night that as far as his party was concerned there could be no going back on the Good Friday Agreement.
Ulster Unionist leader Reg Empey revealed that his party would press both governments to state whether the talks were about implementing the 1998 agreement or the deal which Sinn Fein and the DUP almost struck in December 2004.
