History > 2007 > UK > Northern Ireland (I)
 

Peter Brookes

political cartoon

The Times

January 30, 2007

Left and Right:

Martin McGuinness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_McGuinness
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6169767.stm

The hands of history:

Two worlds come together

to broker a new era of hope

David McKittrick witnesses the first meeting
between the two commanding political figures in Belfast
as they calmly sit side by side to discuss
the future of Northern Ireland

Published: 27 March 2007
The Independent

Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams did not shake hands yesterday: they had no need to, since their manner of signalling they are ready to go into government together produced an even more telling and forceful image.

The substance of what they said was breathtaking enough, but the way they did it was even more phenomenal: they sat calmly side by side, exuding a sense of purpose and the intention of doing serious business together.

The picture of Belfast's two commanding political figures, flanked by their senior lieutenants, carried a subliminal but unambiguous message: after 3,700 deaths the Troubles are over and real politics can begin.

The two warriors of the Troubles believe they can work together. The statements they delivered in the ornate surroundings of a Stormont dining-room were exquisitely crafted to avoid giving anyone offence.

The big news they contained was that Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party will be going into government together, launching a new era and underpinning the peace process with a political foundation.

But even more striking was the absence of accompanying threats or conditions - no begrudgery, no condemnations, no blame game. The two listened carefully and politely to each other, conveying something new in Belfast politics - mutual respect.

For many months, London, Dublin, Washington, republicans and just about everyone else have pressed Mr Paisley to go for power-sharing with Sinn Fein. He has finally done so, and done so handsomely, with no hint of reservation or even tension. Until now, he has not even spoken to Mr Adams or any Sinn Fein representative, leading some to assume that no breakthrough could be expected at their first encounter.

But a breakthrough came and, by letting the cameras in to witness it, the parties provided an image that will take its place among key moments in other peace processes across the world.

Many in Belfast reacted with shock and awe: shock that the leaders of loyalism and republicanism should have finally struck a deal, awe that it had been done without histrionics but in such a business-like manner. Mr Paisley announced the timetable for devolution with a phrase no one has ever heard him use before: "Today we have agreed with Sinn Fein that this date will be Tuesday 8th May 2007." He added: "We must not allow our justified loathing of the horrors and tragedies of the past to become a barrier to creating a better and more stable future."

The two statements were studiously symmetrical. Mr Adams provided an echo by accepting that "the relationships between the people of this island have been marred by centuries of discord, conflict, hurt and tragedy." He continued: "The discussions and agreement between our two parties shows the potential of what can now be achieved."

The sense of mutual satisfaction was also evident in London and Dublin, with the two governments cock-a-hoop at what they describe as the successful slotting in of the last piece of a jigsaw that has taken a painstaking decade to put together.

Tony Blair said proudly: "Everything we have done over the past 10 years has been a preparation for this moment." The Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, lauded the deal as having "the potential to transform the future of this island."

There was also a welcome from the United States, since the Bush and especially the Clinton administration have been closely involved in the peace process. Washington said it looked forward to the dawning of "a new era for Northern Ireland".

Although long anticipated, the actual accomplishment of an agreement for government caused near-incredulity on the streets of Belfast.

The Government long ago set yesterday as a deadline, with the Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Hain, proclaiming - more than 50 times, by the DUP's count - that it was "devolution or dissolution." A meeting of the Assembly set for noon yesterday was abandoned, and the transfer of powers from London postponed until 8 May. But the loss of six weeks of devolution is regarded as a negligible price to pay for such an advance.

Although a devolved administration was expected at some stage, until yesterday many wondered how well it could function if Mr Paisley maintained his no-talk stance. As First Minister he would, in particular, be expected to work alongside Martin McGuinness, who last night accepted the post of Deputy First Minister after being nominated by Sinn Fein. Mr Paisley has, however, now specifically said he will have regular meetings with Mr McGuinness.

It will be fascinating to see what relationship may develop between the Protestant patriarch and the one-time IRA commander. But if yesterday's introductory Paisley-Adams performance is anything to go by, the expected friction may be less than anticipated, given that the two men have spent a full generation eyeing each other from opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Their lives have in a sense been intertwined. One of the formative political experiences of Gerry Adams's life was a bout of serious rioting that broke out in the Falls Road area of Belfast in 1964, when he was 16.

In his biography, Mr Adams blamed the disturbances on "a rabble-rousing, sectarian anti-Catholic demagogue named Ian Paisley" who had threatened to remove an Irish tricolour from the district. In the years since then, Mr Paisley has reciprocated by describing Mr Adams with a battery of uncomplimentary names. Those early riots pre-dated the Troubles proper, in which the loyalist and the republican were to play prominent roles.

For decades, Mr Paisley flew a strictly fundamentalist flag, insisting that attempts to form power-sharing governments involving Unionists and nationalists were to be opposed at all costs. As leader of the Democratic Unionist party he denounced Unionist leaders who sought to set up cross-community governments as traitors, an attitude that he maintained with extraordinary consistency from the 1960s until a few years ago.

Mr Adams, as the republican movement's outstanding leader, was equally opposed to such arrangements, though from an entirely different perspective. He held they were diversions from the central problem, which he defined as the British presence in Northern Ireland.

While the pair maintained those positions for decades, Mr Adams was the first of the two to broaden his analysis and definition of the issues, seeking secret meetings with a range of political figures and others.

By the 1990s, those efforts produced an IRA ceasefire as republicans tested the proposition that the negative power of their violence could be replaced by entry into politics, with votes proving more effective than guns.

This peace process, which reduced but did not remove violence, was - in its early years - a highly controversial project, with Mr Paisley leading the ranks of those who condemned it and wanted it closed down.

But as the death rate fell and a semblance of normality returned to Belfast, the benefits of the process became clear. It provided huge benefits to Sinn Fein, whose vote rose dramatically so that it has become Northern Ireland's largest nationalist party.

The process was much more problematic for Mr Paisley, who was opposed to the whole thing in principle and by gut instinct. But his party nonetheless accepted posts in a power-sharing administration while refusing to attend cabinet meetings with Sinn Fein, a stance that rivals described as "semi-detached".

Republicans have remained solidly attached to the peace process, with the IRA eventually decommissioning its armoury and saying it was going out of business.

A key moment came when the DUP grew to become the largest Unionist party, a position that meant Mr Paisley would get to be First Minister in any new administration. That gave him the chance of moving on from perpetual opposition and into powerful office.

He and his party brooded on the options for many months. Its choices were to simply say no, thus blocking the formation of a new administration, or to agree to take part in a coalition dominated by itself and Sinn Fein. He would be First Minister but it would mean placing hmself at the head of a project he had spent years condemning.

While the signs are that he decided some time ago that he would go for devolution, a defining moment came earlier this month with elections to the Assembly. His party scored a triumphant victory, banishing candidates who were opposed to power-sharing.

On Saturday, a resolution supporting power-sharing was put to his party executive and passed overwhelmingly, with some in the ranks who had seemed to be doubters changing their position to one of support for the idea. All of that amounted to approval for Mr Paisley going into government with a united party and indeed a united Protestant electorate behind him, a level of support that gave him the confidence to do business with his lifelong foes.

What happens next?

* The clock is ticking towards 8 May, the date set for the transfer of powers from London to the Belfast Assembly. In the meantime, both Sinn Fein and the DUP will attempt to postpone unpopular new water rates. They will also be calling on Gordon Brown to increase a £1bn boost planned for the new administration. In the next few days, work will also begin on a programme for government to be ready for devolution. On 8 May, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness are to be nominated as First Minister and Deputy First Minister. The Assembly's four largest parties will also nominate 10 departmental ministers.

Shaking the world

* GORBACHEV and REAGAN (19 November 1985)

After more than 40 years of nuclear brinkmanship, the two met in Geneva to talk about scaling back their arsenals and did the unthinkable - they shook hands.

RABIN, ARAFAT and CLINTON (13 September 1993)

Bitter rivals Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands at the White House. It was the ultimate symbol of commitment to the Middle East peace process by two men who were seen as lifelong enemies

MANDELA and DE KLERK (4 May 1990)

Mandela shook hands with the person who had come to symbolise the government that imprisoned him. Although they remained bitter rivals, the moment came to symbolise their commitment to South African society

NIXON and MAO (February 1972)

Setting aside two decades of bitter animosity, Nixon's surprise visit to Communist China in 1972 and his subsequent handshake with the Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, was described at the time as a meeting that "shook the world".

BEGIN and SADAT (26 March 1979)

The first of the Middle East's momentous handshakes, with Jimmy Carter at the White House, sent shockwaves through the region. It ended 30 years of war between Israel and Egypt, but led to Anwar Sadat's assassination.

    The hands of history: Two worlds come together to broker a new era of hope, I, 27.3.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/ulster/article2396057.ece

Leading article:

A triumph of both style and substance

Published: 27 March 2007
The Independent

There was a time when Ian Paisley's Demcratic Unionist party had a policy of drowning out Sinn Fein. When a Sinn Fein councillor attempted to speak in Belfast city council, Mr Paisley's daughter Rhonda and other DUP members would shout them down, calling out, "Gunman, gunman - gangsters, IRA men, get them out." At other council meetings DUP people would play tapes of Orange songs or spray air freshener at Sinn Fein representatives. The Paisley attitude towards republicanism was summed up when he posed with a sledgehammer with the slogan "Smash Sinn Fein". But that was then; this is now.

Not a sledgehammer was in sight yesterday as Mr Paisley and Gerry Adams delivered something far in excess of what had been expected from their first encounter, in terms both of substance and style. The substance was all that London, Dublin and the other Northern Ireland parties had hoped for - a formal, public commitment to form a government together, with a firm date of 8May. Mr Paisley and Martin McGuinness are to run Northern Ireland together. The fact that yesterday's ostensibly unbreakable deadline for devolution to happen was breached, was suddenly rendered an unimportant technicality. And the style of it all was even more breathtaking, since it provided the most riveting, powerful image, a glimpse of a potential future in which a new, constructive type of politics is possible for Belfast.

It had been assumed that this first Paisley-Adams meeting might be a furtive occasion held behind closed doors, to be followed probably by a terse and tense communiqué. Instead, the two leaders flung open the doors and permitted the television cameras to capture the sight of them sitting side by side, exuding mutual respect and speaking in a non-confrontational, businesslike style. They were polite and constructive; they listened to each other. The fact that there was no handshake did nothing to spoil the occasion, since the sight of the two men together, flanked by their respective teams, had enormous political and psychological impact.

One instant area of agreement between them is their joint desire to extract more cash from London. The billion pounds that is on offer from Gordon Brown as lubrication for a new government has been called "stingy" by Mr Paisley, and Mr Adams can be confidently expected to endorse that description. But the importance of yesterday's event goes far beyond mere cash.

The months and years ahead are still going to be strewn with confrontation and controversy, for loyalist interests will not always coincide with republican concerns. Coalitions are, by their nature, competitive alliances, and since this is Northern Ireland there will be ding-dong battles ahead.

Still, the Paisley-Adams entente at a stroke established a new tone in Belfast politics, sending out the unfamiliar message that the politics of the megaphone just might eventually give way to the politics of pragmatism and the evolution of a culture of dialogue.

Although the peace process has produced many wonders, yesterday ranked among its more remarkable events. For decades Paisley persisted in denying the rights of Catholics and nationalists, insisting that "the Protestant people" had the right to exercise majority rule. Republicans, meanwhile, offered no real respect or recognition of Protestant and unionist rights, blithely assuming that once the British were beaten, unionism would be beaten, too. It has taken many years, many deaths and much discord for the extremes to come to terms with the fact that the troubles would end not in victory for one side, but in compromise. But republicans finally hung up their guns; and yesterday Ian Paisley finally hung up his sledgehammer.

    Leading article: A triumph of both style and substance, I, 27.3.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2396001.ece

In Protestant Heartland,

Support for N. Ireland Pact

March 27, 2007
The New York Times
By EAMON QUINN

BALLYMENA, Northern Ireland, March 27 — It is known as the heart of Paisley Protestant country, the town that launched the long political career of hard line Northern Ireland Protestant leader Ian Paisley, once nicknamed Dr. No.

But a day after Mr. Paisley did the once unthinkable by agreeing to self-government with his Catholic republican arch-enemy Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein, most shoppers and workers in the busy market town here said their leader had done the right thing by finally saying Yes.

Mr. Paisley, 81, had built a career spanning six decades on saying ‘No’ to political compromise to any form of self-rule in Northern Ireland with Catholic nationalists who seek a united Ireland. Starting in Ballymena, his skills as a preacher and orator were honed by denouncing Catholicism as “popery,” “superstition” and much worse.

But to the surprise of many, the same preacher on Monday laid claim to his own legacy by meeting for the first time face-to-face with Mr. Adams and agreeing to form a local government for Northern Ireland on May 8.

Carrying shopping bags to a parking lot near main street, Kathleen Coulter, a Ballymena resident and supporter of Mr. Paisley for the past 50 years, echoed some of that surprise. “I didn’t think Dr. Paisley and Gerry Adams would do it,” she said, but she added that after years of conflict it was the right time for Mr. Paisley to reach a deal.

Residents here say that local elections three weeks ago gave Mr. Paisley the confidence to defy dissent in the party he co-founded 35 years ago. The increased vote also made Mr. Paisley the undoubted leader of Protestants who seek to maintain the British link in Northern Ireland.

But not everyone here seemed happy with his decision to reverse decades of ferocious opposition to Sinn Fein and its affiliate, the I.R.A., which Mr. Paisley long denounced as terrorist.

Some of those disagreements about sharing power with Sinn Fein came to the surface publicly on Tuesday with the resignation of a hard line and trusted party lieutenant, Jim Allister, from his Democratic Unionist Party, or D.U.P., seat in the European Parliament.

But some political analysts said Mr. Paisley had chosen a moment in Northern Ireland’s history when his electoral strength and a shifting mood among voters made compromise possible.

Richard English, a professor of politics at Queen’s University in Belfast and the author of a history of the I.R.A.., said in a telephone interview from Belfast that Mr. Paisley’s acceptance of power-sharing followed some radical shifts that forced both Sinn Fein and the D.U.P. to acknowledge that their dreams from the 1960s would not be fulfilled.

For Sinn Fein, the idea of expelling the British by force had crumbled, while the D.U.P. could no longer aspire to a government based solely on a unionist majority among north Ireland’s 1.6 million people.

“Both were based on an unrealistic notion of politics,” Prof. English said. “Neither of these positions could really expect to win the day and carry people with them.” Nonetheless, it had taken a “long 40 years” to forge that recognition, he said.

One 83-year-old Protestant unionist voter, who wished to be identified only by his first name, Gordon, said he had known Mr. Paisley since school days when they both attended Ballymena Model School in the 1930s.

He believed, he said, that Mr. Paisley should have done the deal years ago. Asked why he thought Mr. Paisley had compromised his hard line stance, Gordon said it was because the Protestant ruler always wanted to rule Northern Ireland. “His whole life he wanted to be the head man,” Gordon said. “The reason he went into it is to be the boss of it,” adding that he fears that Paisley and Mr. Adams will not be able to work together.

Ballymena enjoys a prosperity from its tobacco, poultry processing and a long-established bus coach-building business. House prices are soaring; a four-bedroom house sells for about 600,00 euros (almost $800,000). “That’s 30 percent up in the year,” said Adrian Fullan, who started his own real estate business in the town six months ago. And visitors seek out its tourist center in increasing numbers, said Christine Butler, the borough’s tourist officer.

Extra money and the relative peace of the past nine years since the end of most of the politically-motivated violence in Northern Ireland came as a boost to the town. However, violence returned to Ballymena last May when Catholic teenager Michael McIlveen died after being beaten close to the center of town. More than 1,000 people across the religious divide attended his funeral.

Jim McDowell, who will soon retire from a traditional draper’s shop he has worked in for 18 years, expresses the apparent majority Protestant view in Mr. Paisley’s home town. “I was not happy with what happened during The Troubles, but we must move on,” he said, referring to three decades of sectarian strife that claimed 3,720 lives. But he believes that Mr. Paisley dealt with Mr. Adams only because he was “backed into” it by pressure from the British government.

Others have a different view. In Belfast, Prof. English said Mr. Paisley had fulfilled his ambition to become Northern Ireland’s dominant political force after painstaking negotiations during which the I.R.A.. renounced violence and promised to disarm. Those changes enabled him to depict himself as the victor.

“From his point of view, he can say that for someone who was almost a minority voice, he is the dominant figure,” Prof. English said. “He will be the Prime Minister at his death and he will feel his career has been vindicated: once the I.R.A.. bent the knee, he was prepared to sit down with them.”

    In Protestant Heartland, Support for N. Ireland Pact, NYT, 27.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/world/europe/27cnd-Ireland.html?hp

Northern Ireland Rivals Reach Deal

March 26, 2007
The New York Times
By EAMON QUINN and ALAN COWELL

BELFAST, Northern Ireland, March 26 — The leaders of Northern Ireland’s dominant rival groups, Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and the Protestant leader, the Rev. Ian Paisley, met today for what was billed as their first face-to-face talks, agreeing to form a joint administration for the province on May 8.

The deal was hailed by Britain and Ireland as a historic breakthrough, more than four years after Northern Ireland’s local government was suspended in October, 2002, after a dispute over espionage activities by the Irish Republican Army.

“Today the clouds have lifted and people can see their future,” said Peter Hain, Britain’s Northern Ireland minister.

British officials depicted the agreement as different from previous false starts because the two main parties had made the deal themselves in direct talks that broke the province’s taboos on such direct and public encounters.

If implemented, the agreement means Britain will formally hand back responsibility for running many of Northern Ireland’s internal affairs to an administration composed of Protestants and Catholics, probably with Mr. Paisley, the leader of the biggest party in the province, as First Minister and Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator, as his deputy.

The deal was announced by Mr. Adams and Mr. Paisley as they sat close together at a diamond-shaped table in the Stormont Parliament building.

It was a sight that would have seemed impossible in the days when Mr. Paisley labeled Mr. Adams and his followers terrorists because of Sinn Fein’s affiliation with the I.R.A.

While the province’s leaders failed to meet a March 26 deadline set by Britain and Ireland to restore local government, the fact that the two men named a date themselves — and sat together to say so — was taken to be what Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain called “a very remarkable coming together of people who, for very obvious reasons, have been strongly opposed in the past.”

Indeed, the sight of the two men, once sworn enemies, sitting feet apart was all the more striking when seen in contrast to the once-familiar images of bloodshed that scarred Northern Ireland for decades.

Some 3,600 people died in three decades of sectarian strife that ended with an I.R.A. ceasefire 10 years ago and the Good Friday peace agreement in 1998.

After reading statements in front of a live television camera, Mr. Adams and Mr. Paisley, head of the Democratic Unionist Party, shuffled their papers but did not shake hands.

Nonetheless, in prepared statements, they struck similar, reconciliatory themes.

“We are very conscious of the many people who have suffered,” Mr. Adams said. “We owe it to them to build the best possible future. It is a time for generosity, a time to be mindful of the common good and of the future of all our people.”

A few minutes earlier, Mr. Paisley, who had insisted on the delay until May 8, had said: ”We must not allow our justified loathing of the horrors and tragedies of the past to become a barrier to creating a better and more stable future. In looking to the future we must never forget those who have suffered during the dark period from which we are, please God, emerging.”

When the Good Friday agreement was first struck in 1998, Mr. Paisley’s party rejected the very notion of sharing power with Sinn Fein.

In elections five years later, his Democratic Unionists became Northern Ireland’s biggest Protestant party. Since then, in a series of halting negotiations, Mr. Paisley has begrudgingly nudged towards agreement on power-sharing in return for major concessions.

In 2005, the I.R.A. pledged to put its weapons beyond use and to pursue its goals by political means, not armed struggle.

Right up until the last few weeks, Mr. Paisley pressed Sinn Fein for further concessions, including acceptance of the province’s policing arrangements, traditionally dominated by Protestants.

At a meeting last October in St. Andrew’s, Scotland, Britain and Ireland laid out a timetable that foresaw the power-sharing administration being revived today.

Britain had threatened to restore full direct rule of Northern Ireland if that deadline was not met. But a British official said today: ”If there’s a consensus about the way forward the British government isn’t going to stand in the way of that consensus.”

The St Andrew’s agreement also provided for elections earlier this month, in which both Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists strengthened their positions as the two most powerful parties in the province.

In London, Mr. Blair said: ”This is a very important day for the people of northern Ireland, but also for the people and history of these islands. And in a sense, everything we’ve done over the last 10 years has been a preparation for this moment, because the people of Northern Ireland have spoken through the election.”

“They have said they want peace and power-sharing and people working together and the political leadership has come in behind that and said: Well, we’ll deliver what the people want.”

The two sides remain divided in their basic aims, however, with Sinn Fein pressing for a united Ireland and the Democratic Unionists seeking continued links with mainland Britain.

“This won’t stop republicans being any less republican or nationalist, or making unionists less fiercely unionist,” Mr. Blair said. “But what it does mean is that people will come together, respecting each other’s point of view, and share power, make sure politics is only expressed by peaceful and democratic means.”

The agreement is particularly important for Mr. Blair since he plans to step down in the summer and wants to put in place a legacy that will include an agreement on Northern Ireland, ending a conflict whose roots date to the 17th century settlement of north-eastern Ireland by Protestants from Scotland and England.

The restoration of Northern Ireland’s local administration would also fulfill an electoral promise to create local government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Mr. Adams, whose party is also competing for electoral advantage in the Irish Republic, said Monday’s agreement “marks the beginning of a new era of politics on this island.”

The two sides said that between now and May 8 they would hold meetings on the details of restoring the power-sharing executive and would jointly press the British government for an improved package of incentives to boost the province’s economy, which is heavily dependent on government subsidies.

Referring to his own party, which is affiliated to the I.R.A., and to Mr. Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party, Mr. Adams said: “There are still many difficulties to be faced but let it be clear — the basis of the agreement between Sinn Fein and the D.U.P. follows Ian Paisley’s unequivocal and welcome commitment to support and participate fully in the political institutions on May 8.”

It is not totally clear why that date has been chosen. It would place the restoration of power-sharing government in Northern Ireland between local elections in Scotland and Wales and a national election expected several weeks later in the Irish Republic.

Eamon Quinn reported from Belfast and Alan Cowell from London

    Northern Ireland Rivals Reach Deal, NYT, 26.3.2007, hhttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/world/europe/26cnd-ireland.html?hp

Paisley and Adams agree historic deal

Published: 26 March 2007
The Independent
By Dan McGinn, PA

Power-sharing in Northern Ireland will return on 8 May under today's historic deal brokered by the Rev Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams at Stormont.

The date was confirmed by the Democratic Unionist Party leader after the first face-to-face meeting between the two parties, lasting an hour, in the dining room at Stormont's Parliament Buildings.

Mr Paisley said: "This meeting represents an important step on the road to the setting-up of a power-sharing executive in six weeks' time."

The North Antrim MP confirmed that between now and the date of the restoration of devolved government the Assembly parties would be involved in preparatory work to ensure that the power-sharing ministers would be able to hit the ground running.

This would include regular meetings between himself and Martin McGuinness as the de facto First and Deputy First Ministers.

Negotiations would also continue to secure a better financial package for the new power-sharing government from Chancellor Gordon Brown.

Sinn Fein president Mr Adams said the agreement between his party and the DUP marked the beginning of a new era of politics in Ireland.

"The discussions and agreement between our two parties showed the potential of what can now be achieved," the West Belfast MP said.

He added: "Sinn Fein is about building a new relationship between orange and green and all the other colours where every citizen can share and have equality of ownership of a peaceful, prosperous and just future.

"There are still many difficulties to be faced but let it be clear - the basis of the agreement between Sinn Fein and the DUP follows Ian Paisley's unequivocal and welcome commitment to support and participate fully in the political institutions on 8 May."

Mr Adams also confirmed that, as an immediate step, the two parties had asked the British Government not to issue controversial water charges which were due to be posted tomorrow.

Mr Paisley said that, after a long and difficult time in the history of Northern Ireland, he believed there were enormous opportunities lying ahead for the province.

"Devolution has never been an end in itself, but is about making a positive difference to people's lives," he said.

"I want to make it clear that I am committed to delivering for not only those who voted for the DUP but for all the people of Northern Ireland.

"We must not allow our justified loathing of the horrors and tragedies of the past to become a barrier to creating a better and more stable future for our children.

"In looking to that future, we must never forget those who have suffered during the dark period from which we are, please God, now emerging

    Paisley and Adams agree historic deal, I, 26.3.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/ulster/article2393903.ece

In quotes: Paisley and Adams

Monday March 26, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

"If Ian Paisley wants to lead his party into the assembly and into the executive, there won't be any revolt within grassroots unionism against that - if he wants to do it, he can do it. As far as I'm concerned, the war is over. One of the big questions he has to ask himself is, is his war over?"
Independent, April 10 2006

"He radicalised me, because though I come from a republican background, I wasn't conscious of that in any real sense ... it was Ian Paisley who led me to wonder how a clergyman could stand up and threaten to go in and tell the RUC to take the flag out, and if they didn't, he would."
Guardian, February 5 2004

"He should take the courage of his convictions in his own hands - he does not need to have confidence in us but in himself. We have never set any precondition on talking. I could drag up 800 years [British presence in Ireland] of reasons for not talking if I wanted to, but, as Tony Blair has said, the peace process is moving backwards"
Christchurch Press, May 8 2004

"We can get an agreement despite the refusal of Ian Paisley to talk directly to us."
November 28 2004, on Breakfast with Frost

"If Ian Paisley isn't going to share power with the rest of us, then we have to move on without him."
August 4 2005, after Downing Street meeting with Northern Irish parties

Paisley on Adams

"I will never sit down with Gerry Adams . . . he'd sit with anyone. He'd sit down with the devil. In fact, Adams does sit down with the devil."
Independent, February 13 1997

"Mr Adams would have to repent from his evil ways. I am here tonight by the grace of God, a sinner saved by grace"
April 14 1994, when asked in New York whether he would shake Mr Adams' hand

"Talk about dancing at Christmas on the graves of Ulster dead, and to be given the facility so to dance by the British prime minister . . . Here we saw the godfathers of those who planned the bombing of Downing Street, standing outside there and piously pretending they were engaged in a search for peace."
December 11 1997, reacting to the Downing Street meeting of Mr Adams and Tony Blair

"We are not going into government with Sinn Fein."
September 27 2005, after the confirmation of IRA's decommissioning of its arms

    In quotes: Paisley and Adams, G, 26.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2043227,00.html

Full text

Gerry Adams' statement

Statement by the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams,
speaking after his meeting with Ian Paisley

Monday March 26, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

"I want to begin my remarks by welcoming the statement by Ian Paisley.

While it is disappointing that the institutions of the Good Friday agreement have not been restored today, I believe the agreement reached between Sinn Féin and the DUP, including the unequivocal commitment, made by their party executive and reiterated today, to the restoration of political institutions on May 8, marks the beginning of a new era of politics on this island.

The discussions and agreement between our two parties shows the potential of what can now be achieved.

Sinn Féin entered into these discussions in a positive and strategic way strengthened by our recently renewed and increased mandate. I want to once again thank everyone who supports our party.

Ta muid buioch daoibh go leir.

In all of the initiatives we have taken in recent times we have been guided by the need to deliver for the people of Ireland. So, in our discussions we have listened very carefully to the position put forward by Ian Paisley and his colleagues.

The relationships between the people of this island have been marred by centuries of discord, conflict, hurt and tragedy.

In particular this has been the sad history of orange and green. Ach ta tus nua ann anois le cuidiu De.

Sinn Féin is about building a new relationship between orange and green and all the other colours, where every citizen can share and have equality of ownership of a peaceful, prosperous and just future.

There are still many challenges, many difficulties to be faced. But let us be clear. The basis of the agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP follows Ian Paisley's unequivocal and welcome commitment to support and participate fully in the political institutions on May 8.

"In the lead up to restoration important work has to take place preparing for government. And you have the outline of that also.

As an immediate step both Sinn Féin and the DUP have asked the British government not to issue the water bills.

Tus maith leath na hoibre. A good start is half the work.

The two governments also have other work to do.

We are committed to, and today discussed, further engagements with the British chancellor, with the Irish government, and with others to ensure that the incoming executive has the best possible resources to fulfil our responsibilities.

We have all come a very long way in the process of peace making and national reconciliation. We are very conscious of the many people who have suffered. We owe it to them to build the best future possible.

It is a time for generosity, a time to be mindful of the common good and of the future of all our people.

I am pleased to say that collectively we have created the potential to build a new, harmonious and equitable relationship between nationalists and republicans and unionists, as well as the rest of the people of the island of Ireland.

Sinn Féin will take nothing for granted in the days and weeks ahead but we will do all that we can to ensure a successful outcome and we ask everyone to support us in our efforts."

    Gerry Adams' statement, G, 26.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2043251,00.html

Full transcript of the statement

delivered by the Reverend Ian Paisley

Monday March 26, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

"In 2003 the DUP became the largest political party in Northern Ireland and the last three and a half years has seen our strategy deliver very significant advances for the unionist people.

Our goal has been to see devolution returned in a context where it can make a real and meaningful improvement in the lives of all the people of this part of the United Kingdom. On March 7, the unionist community gave us a mandate to deliver on this pledge.

On Saturday the DUP Executive overwhelmingly endorsed a motion committing the party to support and participate fully in government in May of this year. This is a binding resolution.

In the past the government has set arbitrary deadlines but now, as laid out in our resolution, we, as a party, have agreed the timing, the setting- up and working of the institutions. Today, we have agreed with Sinn Fein that this date will be Tuesday May 8, 2007.

As the largest party in Northern Ireland, we are committed to playing a full part in all the institutions and delivering the best future for the people of Northern Ireland.

In the period before devolution we will participate fully with the other parties to the Executive in making full preparations for the restoration of devolution on May 8.

This meeting represents an important step on the road to the setting-up of an Executive in six weeks' time. It has been a constructive engagement and we have agreed that in the weeks between now and the restoration of devolution on May 8 there is important preparatory work to be carried out so that local ministers can hit the ground running.

This will include regular meetings between the future First and Deputy First Minister.

The work must begin as quickly as possible and we have been considering a work programme to bring us to the agreed date for devolution which we are now asking the government to legislate for.

There is still vital work to be done to ensure the most favourable financial package possible is in place to allow devolution to succeed and prosper. To this end we have agreed with Sinn Fein to seek an early meeting with the Chancellor.

In the next few days detailed work will begin, involving all of the Executive parties, to allow a programme for government to be finalised for the start of devolution. This will require regular meetings in the next few weeks.

The two parties have already asked the prime minister to ensure that no water charge bills should be issued and the matter should be left for a local Executive to determine. We hope, trust and believe that the Secretary of State will listen to the voice of the people of Northern Ireland.

After a long and difficult time in the province, I believe that enormous opportunities lie ahead for Northern Ireland.

"Devolution has never been an end in itself but is about making a positive difference to people's lives. I want to make it clear that I am committed to delivering not only for those who voted for the DUP but for all the people of Northern Ireland.

We must not allow our justified loathing of the horrors and tragedies of the past to become a barrier to creating a better and more stable future.

In looking to that future, we must never forget those who have suffered during the dark period from which we are, please God, emerging. We owe it to them to craft and build the best future possible and ensure there is genuine support for those who are still suffering.

With hard work and a commitment to succeed, I believe we can lay the foundation for a better, peaceful and prosperous future for all our people."

    Full transcript of the statement delivered by the Reverend Ian Paisley, G, 26.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2043246,00.html
 

3.30pm update

Paisley and Adams agree deal

Monday March 26, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker and Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent

Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams today agreed a date for the return of power sharing in Northern Ireland during historic talks at Stormont.

Following their first ever face-to-face discussions, the leaders of the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Féin announced a target date of May 8 for the restoration of devolved government.

The government had set today as a final deadline for a restoration of power sharing before direct rule from London was restored permanently and will now have to rush emergency legislation through the House of Commons to prevent this.

"After a long and difficult time in our province, I believe that enormous opportunities lie ahead for our province," Mr Paisley told reporters, as he sat at a conference table next to Mr Adams.

The agreement "marks the beginning of a new era of politics on this island", the Sinn Féin leader agreed, but added that he found it "disappointing" that Northern Ireland's political institution could not be restored immediately.

The British prime minister, Tony Blair, hailed the agreement, saying: "This is a very important day for the people of Northern Ireland but also for the people and the history of these islands."

"In a sense, everything we have done over the last ten years has been a preparation for this moment, because the people of Northern Ireland have spoken through the election," he told reporters, after talking by phone with his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern.

"They have said we want peace and power-sharing and the political leadership has then come in behind that and said we will deliver what people want."

In Ireland, Mr Ahern called today's developments "unprecedented and very positive", and said both governments would cooperate with the new May 8 date for devolution.

The Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, said a one clause emergency bill would be put through parliament with the agreement of opposition parties, and would need royal assent before midnight tomorrow to prevent the dissolution of the Stormont assembly.

Mr Hain described today's events as "really, really momentous".

"Today the clouds have lifted and the people can see the future," he told BBC Radio 4's The World At One.

"These pictures of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams will resonate around the world. They are a graphic manifestation of the power of politics over bigotry and conflict, bitterness and horror."

The crucial meeting saw delegations from the DUP and Sinn Féin spend an hour together inside a room at Stormont to hammer out the final agreement for a return to power sharing.

A beaming Mr Paisley emerged and shouted down to reporters: "Do you have two eyes in your head?", drawing attention to the momentous nature of what had just taken place.

Afterwards, both leaders talked about the work still needing to be done, including regular meetings between Mr Paisley and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness as the de facto first and deputy first ministers.

Clearly conscious of the historical significance of their talks, Mr Paisley and Mr Adams spoke of the suffering caused by the decades of inter-community violence and their responsibility to ensure permanent peace and reconciliation.

Northern Ireland's politicians must "never forget those who have suffered during the dark period from which we are, please God, emerging", Mr Paisley said.

He added: "I want to make it clear that I am committed to delivering not only for those who voted for the DUP but for all the people of Northern Ireland.

"We must not allow our justified loathing for the horrors and tragedies of the past to become a barrier to creating a better and more stable future for our children."

Mr Adams said there was now new hope for the future, following the previous "sad history of orange and green".

"There are still many challenges, many difficulties, to be faced. But let us be clear: the basis of the agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP follows Ian Paisley's unequivocal and welcome commitment to support and participate fully in the political institutions on May 8," he said.

"We've all come a very long way in the process of peace making and national reconciliation. We are very conscious of the many people who have suffered. We owe it to them to build the best future possible."

The proposal for the historic meeting came after a frantic weekend of consultation in Belfast and Berlin, where Mr Blair and Mr Ahern were attending a ceremony to mark 50 years of the European Union.

Both prime ministers had repeatedly insisted the assembly would be dissolved if no agreement on an executive had been reached by today's legal deadline. No 10 was forced into a last-minute change of strategy after Mr Paisley's DUP, agreed in principle on Saturday to share power with Sinn Féin, but demanded an extension of the deadline for the formation of the executive until May.

The DUP, which is badly split, said they needed the further time to see if Sinn Féin would comply with its commitment to cooperate with the Northern Ireland police service.

Until now Mr Paisley's DUP had always refused to meet Sinn Féin; each represents what used to be seen as the two extremes of Northern Ireland sectarian politics.

    Paisley and Adams agree deal, G, 26.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2043078,00.html

1.45pm

Blair hails historic deal

Staff and agencies
Monday March 26, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

Tony Blair has described today's deal to restore Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration as the historic culmination of 10 years of work.

Mr Blair said the agreement between Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams was "a very important day for the people of Northern Ireland".

"In a sense, everything we have done over the last 10 years has been a preparation for this moment, because the people of Northern Ireland have spoken through the election," he added.

"They have said we want peace and power-sharing, and the political leadership has then come in behind that and said we will deliver what people want."

Mr Blair said today's deal would "mean ... people can come together, respecting each other's point of view and share power and make sure politics is only expressed through peaceful and democratic means".

"It will give the people of Northern Ireland the future they want and give heart to all of us who have wanted this process over the past few years," he said.

"Now, at last, we have a date certain for the devolution of power and a remarkable coming together of people who have, for very obvious reasons, been strongly opposed in the past."

Mr Blair - who helped bring about power-sharing early in his first term through the 1998 Good Friday agreement - is widely believed to be extremely keen to see a permanent deal reached before he leaves office this summer.

However, he refused to speculate as to what might happen, saying: "The important thing for the moment is to take what has happened now and to see it through, and that's what we will do."

    Blair hails historic deal, G, 26.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2043260,00.html

Seeing is believing

March 26, 2007 1:28 PM
The Guardian
Malachi O'Doherty

The popular mood in Belfast is one of complete disgust.

Peter Hain, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, insisted that the deadline today for the establishment of a devolved executive was solid and inflexible. The fact that we didn't actually believe him does little to mitigate the sense that he has once again made a complete ass of himself by conceding to the refusal of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist party to participate.

If he had the courage of his determination, surely he could tell Ian Paisley that his thundering days are over and he could have demonstrated that by allowing the assembly speaker to form an executive from among those parties who turned up and were willing to go ahead. There are, after all, 108 members of the assembly and only 36 of them are in Paisley's DUP. It would be perfectly possible to run the selection procedure and produce a cross-community power-sharing executive without them.

But the rattled populace misses the point. It is not often that a government minister secures political objectives through self-abasement. Hain is perhaps the first since Mahatma Gandhi. And it is doubtful that he could function this way in London. How many deadlines could a minister there set and set aside before his word wasn't worth the breath expended on it?

The fact is that a major political achievement has been secured. Ian Paisley has committed himself to power-sharing with Sinn Fein and has sat down and talked to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, men he has long regarded as borderline demonic.

Gerry Adams has recognised that as a significant step forward and sufficient price for his agreement to defer the formation of the executive. He has recognised that Paisley put himself at his mercy and he has spared him much humiliation and drama and reversed the policy of Sinn Féin, which was that if an executive was not formed today a Plan B, involving greater participation by the Irish government, should proceed.

In consequence, a collapsed deadline and a political shambles has been converted into a mutual confidence-building exercise between bitter enemies, and a date for real devolution has been agreed. Forgive the people of Belfast if they don't feel inclined to jump for joy. The peace process has been dragged out painfully, through many raised hopes and crashed deadlines.

The attitude of most people is, "we'll believe it when we see it".

    Seeing is believing, G, 26.3.2007, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/malachi_odoherty/2007/03/the_popular_mood_in_belfast.html

Paisley, Adams

Launch Face - To - Face Talks

March 26, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:16 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) -- The stubborn titans of Northern Ireland politics, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, launched their first face-to-face negotiations Monday in a stunning breakthrough for Northern Ireland peacemaking.

The historic ice-breaker came on the day that Britain long billed as an ''unbreakable'' deadline for a Catholic-Protestant administration to be formed.

    Paisley, Adams Launch Face - To - Face Talks, NYT, 26.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Northern-Ireland.html

11.15am

Face to face for the first time

Monday March 26, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent

It was not what they had expected. Nonetheless, there is a sense of anticipation.

Assembly members gathering at Stormont this morning had been hoping to witness full-scale devolution to a power-sharing executive.

Instead, the day's main event will be a historic meeting between Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams - the first time the leaders of the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein have held face to face talks.

The venue will be the members' dining room in the assembly building, where four chairs have been arranged on each side of a table. Pictures recording the event may be released later.

The DUP's Saturday decision to sanction power-sharing but delay it until May shifted the political landscape once again. Another deadline, said to be final, will probably slip by tonight, but with progress made towards a power-sharing future.

If the meeting goes well, Sinn Fein will acquiesce to a delay in devolution in six weeks. They may well demand a political price for their cooperation.

The DUP says it requires the extra time to negotiate a larger financial package with Gordon Brown to secure the future of the province and ensure that republicans demonstrate support for the police.

By this morning, the secretary of state, Peter Hain, was no longer talking about midnight on Monday March 26 as being a final deadline for "devolution or dissolution".

Instead, he said: "I'm not worried about the deadline going over a few weeks if we have something that has never happened before."

By later today, it will be apparent whether his confidence is well placed.

    Face to face for the first time, G, 26.3.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,2043139,00.html

10.45am update

Ulster assembly meeting postponed

Monday March 26, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Press Association

Plans for a Northern Ireland assembly session to nominate ministers were put on hold today by the speaker, Eileen Bell.

As preparations were made for a historic face-to-face meeting between the Rev Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, assembly officials confirmed that the midday sitting for the nomination of ministers had been postponed.

"The speaker will continue to consult party whips throughout the day," a spokesman said.

Preparations were being made for a meeting at 11am in the assembly members' dining room between Sinn Féin and the DUP.

It was believed Mr Paisley and Gerry Adams would lead delegations of four members into the talks.

A Sinn Féin source said: "If the meeting goes ahead, then the message is going out that a deal is being reached.

"Even at this late stage, there are still a number of issues to be ironed out."

The meeting is expected to take place at 11am once remaining issues were resolved.

    Ulster assembly meeting postponed, G, 26.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2043078,00.html

Paisley and Adams to meet for first time to break deadlock

· Paisley-Adams meeting breaks the last taboo
· Government ready to lift threat to dissolve Northern Ireland Assembly

Monday March 26, 2007
Guardian
Patrick Wintour and Owen Bowcott

Ian Paisley, the Democratic Unionist party leader, and Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Féin, are expected to break one of the final taboos of Northern Ireland politics today by sitting down together to try to agree terms on the final establishment of a power-sharing executive for the province.

The unprecedented meeting is of such symbolic and practical importance that the government will back down over its repeated threat to dissolve the Northern Ireland Assembly irrevocably today.

The proposal for a meeting came after a frantic weekend of consultation in Belfast and Berlin, where Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, were attending a ceremony to mark 50 years of the European Union.

Both prime ministers have repeatedly said the assembly would be dissolved, and direct rule from London permanently restored, if no agreement on an executive had been reached by today's legal deadline.

No 10 was forced into a last-minute change of strategy after Mr Paisley's DUP, agreed in principle on Saturday to share power with Sinn Féin, but demanded an extension of the deadline for the formation of the executive until May.

The DUP, which is badly split, said they needed the further time to see if Sinn Féin would comply with its commitment to cooperate with the Northern Ireland police service.

The DUP's deadline would still enable the executive to start before Mr Blair resigns, or at least leaves No 10.

The British government decided to shift its ground on the basis that a meeting between Mr Paisley and Mr Adams would represent a statement of serious intent by the DUP and signal that it was willing to shift ground in return for a deferral.

Mr Paisley's DUP has always refused to meet Sinn Féin; each represents what used to be seen as the two extremes of Northern Ireland sectarian politics.

One Whitehall source said: "Yes, it is messy and we are losing some face, but if the political parties can reach a consensus ... then that is better than us trying to force an agreement upon them. We are insisting on the meeting as a sign that the DUP cannot go on delaying indefinitely. We will also get a deal before the prime minister leaves office."

Mr Adams and Mr Paisley will meet at a Stormont committee meeting. Mr Blair has been mediating to ensure the meeting goes smoothly.

Ministers believe Mr Paisley had wanted to do a deal this weekend, but was forced into accepting the deferral in order to maintain some degree of unity within his party .

If Mr Adams and Mr Paisley can reach agreement on a timetable today, Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary, will at some point this week pass emergency legislation in parliament amending the previous law stating that the Northern Ireland Assembly would be automatically dissolved if the parties had not agreed to vote in an executive by today.

The necessary emergency legislation has yet to be drafted, and may not be ready today.

Defending their call for a further delay, DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson said yesterday: "Saturday's party executive meeting was truly historic. The DUP has made a firm commitment to participate in power-sharing government in May. We felt there was a need for more time, because there were outstanding issues to be resolved.

"We need to have a further testing to ensure Sinn Féin's commitment to the rule of law and to negotiate a [larger] financial package [with Gordon Brown]."

Mr Adams, MP for West Belfast, said it was vital that devolved government was restored. "Otherwise additional water charges and other punitive and unfair measures will be introduced by unaccountable British Direct Rule ministers," he warned.

"If the DUP remains unwilling or unable to reach an agreement with Sinn Féin and the other parties then the [British and Irish] governments have to move ahead with their all-Ireland partnership arrangements."

A senior Sinn Féin official said: "We are assured by Downing Street and the Northern Ireland Office that there are no [secret] deals with the DUP. But if the parties come to some sort of agreement, then [the governments] will have to take that on board. It's cards close to chests time."

During the day there were claims that Downing Street was prepared to accede to the DUP's demands and was at odds with Mr Hain, who wanted to take a harder line. John Reid, the former Northern Ireland secretary, is said to have been closely involved in last week's negotiations with Mr Blair. Mr Reid is close to some DUP leaders, even though Mr Hain has struck up a strong relationship with Mr Paisley.

The prospect of delay until May angered the Ulster Unionist party deputy leader and assembly member Danny Kennedy. "The reality is that the process will continue," he told BBC radio. "All of this is highly cynical, an exercise in huge mismanagement by No 10.

"Blair is more interested in his legacy than restoring devolution to the people of Northern Ireland. We see no reason why there's any real difference between [today] and a matter of a few weeks. I think the secretary of state is clearly undermined and his authority is ridiculed. In any other part of the UK his foot wouldn't touch the floor. He would be out."

Other politicians also vented their frustration. The senior Sinn Féin assembly member Alex Maskey, said: "There's no question of us acquiescing to a delay. This is not a new commitment by the DUP."

However, Mr Hain thought there might yet be sufficient room for manoeuvre. "It really depends on what transpires, and there's going to have to be a lot of progress made if an alternative to devolution or dissolution ... is [to be] found," he told the BBC. "If the parties come back with a better option that for the very first time gives certainty, with them all saying they're committing to a date and it's all signed up and sealed ... well, I'm not going to turn my back on that."

The Northern Ireland Office denied there was any divergence over policy with Downing Street, or that Mr Reid had been involved in the process.

    Paisley and Adams to meet for first time to break deadlock, G, 26.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2042840,00.html

Paisley faces rebellion over power-sharing deadline

· Unionist leader's call for concessions rejected
· Government fears Blair's legacy is slipping away

Saturday March 24, 2007
Guardian
Patrick Wintour and Owen Bowcott

A despondent British government fears Tony Blair's planned Northern Ireland legacy is slipping away amid signs that Ian Paisley is facing a party revolt over his plans to form a power sharing executive with Sinn Féin on Monday.

Mr Blair and his Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain met Mr Paisley yesterday at Downing Street to tell him the long awaited executive must be formed on Monday, the deadline set in legislation.

But Mr Paisley, after a rebellious meeting of the Democratic Unionist party executive on Thursday night, sought further concessions before deciding whether to go back his executive today to ask them to allow his name to go forward tonight to be nominated as first minister.

He asked Mr Blair to rush emergency legislation through the Commons next week ensuring the executive is temporarily suspended after it meets.

Mr Blair for the second time in a week told Mr Paisley the executive must be formed on Monday or devolution will be abandoned, shattering his own hopes of seeing cross party self-government in Northern Ireland before he quits No 10 this summer. He could not agree to emergency legislation freezing the executive on Monday, and no Plan B was available.

Government sources conceded that the executive need not meet again until the end of April -a formula designed to meet Protestant requirements and thought to be acceptable to Sinn Féin - as long as the executive was formed at meetings on Monday and Tuesday. "So long as they cross the Rubicon, the DUP can take a breather on the bank on the other side," one Whitehall source conceded.

The two month delay would give the DUP the time they want to decide if Sinn Féin was fulfilling its promise to co-operate with the police. But sources are increasingly worried that Mr Paisley is losing grip of his executive as a succession battle starts between Peter Robinson and the more hardline Nigel Dodds.

The previously co-operative Mr Robinson is hardening his position in the face of the popularity of Mr Dodds. Mr Paisley who is expected to stand down next year was believed to be shocked by the strength of the executive reaction on Thursday. "It went ten times worse than we expected, and he is now looking for a big concession we do not have," said one source.

The MP for East Derry, Gregory Campbell, said again yesterday he did not think conditions were ready for a deal. One estimate said around 45% of the party opposed power sharing at this stage.

These negotiations are proving the most divisive the DUP have faced. Some figures, such as the South Antrim MP Willy McCrea and the MEP Jim Allister, appear to be opposed to any deal with republicans. Mr Paisley is also demanding that if one section of the Northern Ireland executive - in practice Sinn Féin - defaulted on the issue of police cooperation, only the defaulter must be punished, so the executive continues in the absence of Sinn Féin.

The government is still convinced that Mr Paisley wants to do a deal, and sit alongside Martin McGuinness as his deputy in government sensing that this too is the view of the Protestant majority.

Mr Hain is due to sign a restoration order at midnight today to compel assembly members to appoint a new power sharing executive. He wants the assembly to elect its ministers on Monday and for the executive to meet once more on Tuesday, then possibly not meet again until April.

The DUP are still trying to extract further financial concessions, pressing the Treasury to build on its £1bn aid package released on Thursday. Mr Paisley complained it would not cause a step change in the Northern Ireland economy, accusing the chancellor of being stingy.

The Northern Ireland Office is applying counter pressure by warning that if no executive is established the peace dividend will be withdrawn. They are also warning wildly unpopular water charge increases will go ahead in April if no deal is struck. The bills are due to go out on Tuesday, and can only be stopped if the executive meets.

    Paisley faces rebellion over power-sharing deadline, G, 24.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,2041729,00.html

Blair's secret weapon in Paisley talks: religion

· PM wooed DUP leader by swapping Christian texts
· Two men brought closer by 'religious love affair'

Wednesday March 14, 2007
Guardian
Nicholas Watt, Owen Bowcott and Patrick Wintour


Tony Blair has forged a special bond with the Rev Ian Paisley, the DUP leader who holds the future of the Northern Ireland peace process in his hands, by discussing their common interest in and commitment to Christianity.

Spearheading a government charm offensive to win round the one time Presbyterian firebrand, the two men have been swapping religious textbooks over the past year.

Mr Blair's aim has been to win the confidence of Mr Paisley, a strident critic of the government's concessions to Sinn Féin, who has become the dominant force in Northern Irish unionism in recent years.

Mr Paisley confirmed to the Guardian yesterday that his discussions in recent years with the prime minister had gone well beyond politics. Asked whether he shared an interest in religion with the prime minister, the DUP leader said: "We shared books that I thought would be good for him to read and I'm sure he read them. He always takes books away with him."

Downing Street refused to comment last night. However, Lord Bew, the professor of Irish politics at Queen's University Belfast who has good connections at the highest levels of government, believes the Blair/Paisley dialogue on religion has transformed their relations, even though they come from apparently contrasting denominations.

A fierce Protestant, Mr Paisley is the founder and moderator of the Free Presbyterian church, who has outraged Catholics by denouncing the Pope as the anti-Christ. Mr Blair is an Anglican who attends mass with his Catholic wife.

"Blair is brilliant at seducing Paisley," Lord Bew said. "This is the most amazing love affair, the last great Blairite romance.They are even exchanging books on religion. It is fantastic stuff. It is religious; it is romantic. It is brilliant. You have to hand it to him. Once again, when we thought the old maestro was fading, his capacity to seduce, politically speaking, is phenomenal."

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary, joined the prime ministerial offensive by holding a special 80th birthday party for Mr Paisley at Hillsborough Castle last year. "It was a very pleasant, delightful occasion," Mr Hain said of the evening which was dry, out of respect for Mr Paisley's strict Free Presbyterianism.

The charm offensive appeared to be paying off yesterday. Mr Blair's new ally gave his most positive statement yet that a power-sharing deal might be achieved with Sinn Féin.

"I'm not confident until it's done," Mr Paisley said. "I think we have made a bit of progress. I think we are getting down to the real issues at last. The rest was shadow-boxing."

Mr Paisley added that his success in last week's assembly elections - the DUP won 36 of the 108 seats - had given him room to manoeuvre. "I can afford now to go a bit further because I am confident the people are with me."

The prime minister, whose former spokesman Alastair Campbell famously declared that "we don't do God", is deeply reluctant to talk about his Christianity in public. But it appears he decided to mix politics and religion with Mr Paisley some time after the 2005 general election when it became clear that the future of the peace process lay in the hands of the DUP.

Mr Paisley, who had spent 40 years as an outside - but hugely influential - force, became the pivotal figure in unionism after the 2005 general election when his party all but wiped out the once mighty Ulster Unionists. So called "Flymo" unionists locked to the DUP when the IRA took its time to decommission.

The government tried to persuade the IRA to disarm by granting a series of concessions to Sinn Féin which were criticised in yesterday's Guardian by Peter Mandelson. Lord Trimble, who stood down as UUP leader after losing his seat in the 2005 general election, today echoes the criticisms of the former Northern Ireland secretary.

"I remember we said to him many times that his focus was always seen to be on republican difficulties and doing things to help them," Lord Trimble tells the Guardian.

Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin's chief negotiator, today criticises Lord Trimble and the prime minister for failing to face down Mr Paisley when the DUP was boycotting the political talks.

    Blair's secret weapon in Paisley talks: religion, G, 14.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2033282,00.html

Blair guilty of capitulating to Sinn Féin - Mandelson

Former minister says PM was irresponsible in way he dealt with republicans

Tuesday March 13, 2007
Guardian
Nicholas Watt, Patrick Wintour and Owen Bowcott

Peter Mandelson has accused the prime minister of "unreasonable and irresponsible" behaviour in the way he granted concessions to Sinn Féin during Downing Street's attempts to broker a peace deal in Northern Ireland. As Mr Blair tries once again to revive power sharing, he is criticised by one of his closest political allies of "conceding and capitulating" to republican demands, which alienated unionists.
In a Guardian interview for a series examining the prime minister's handling of the peace process, the former Northern Ireland secretary praised Mr Blair for his commitment to the process, dating back to when he became Labour leader in 1994. But he added: "In order to keep the process in motion [Tony] would be sort of dangling carrots and possibilities in front of the republicans which I thought could never be delivered, that it was unreasonable and irresponsible to intimate that you could when you knew that you couldn't."

Mr Mandelson's revelation that he disagreed with the prime minister - at one point he refused an order to write a secret letter to Sinn Féin - sheds new light on his second resignation from the cabinet in 2001. At the time of his departure Alastair Campbell, then the prime minister's official spokesman, openly questioned Mr Mandelson's judgment over Northern Ireland on the grounds that he became overly sympathetic to the unionists and too hostile to Sinn Féin.

Downing Street officials interviewed by the Guardian say that Mr Blair has wrestled with the dilemma highlighted by Mr Mandelson over the past decade: how to bring Sinn Féin in from the cold without destroying unionist support. Lord Butler , the former cabinet secretary, says: "There was a lot to be said for paying a price to keep the bicycle moving. The issue is whether Tony Blair paid too big a price."

Lord Butler and Mr Mandelson are among a series of senior officials and politicians - including all four surviving Northern Ireland secretaries to have served under Mr Blair - whose interviews appear in this week's three-day Guardian series on the peace process. Political leaders from across the spectrum, including the former Ulster Unionist leader Lord Trimble and Sinn Féin's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness, praise Mr Blair for his commitment to Northern Ireland.

Mr McGuinness hails the prime minister for ending the "Thatcher mentality" on the issue. His favourable views are not shared by Seamus Mallon, the SDLP's former deputy first minister, who tells the Guardian that Mr Blair treated the late Mo Mowlam "like shit", employing an approach in which the prime minister would "buy anybody [and] sell anybody".

The Guardian series sheds new light on the peace process by revealing:

· Downing Street believed that the IRA leadership ordered the United Kingdom's biggest bank robbery in 2004 from the Northern Bank after the political process hit the rocks;

· Peter Mandelson says ministers had to maintain a "fiction" that they were not talking to the IRA when they met Sinn Féin;

· John Reid, the home secretary, believes the IRA were targeting individuals for attack as recently as 2002;

· George Mitchell, the former US senator who chaired the Good Friday agreement talks in 1998, warns of continuing crises even if a power-sharing deal is reached by the end of this month;

· The prime minister used his Protestant Ulster roots - his maternal grandfather was a member of the Orange Order - to woo unionists but said nothing of his background to nationalists.

The revelations come as the prime minister tries to broker a power-sharing deal between Sinn Féin and the DUP after the two parties dominated last week's election to the Northern Ireland assembly.

Mr Mandelson reveals that Sinn Féin lay at the heart of his row with the prime minister just a month after he succeeded Mo Mowlam as Northern Ireland secretary in October 1999. The prime minister demanded that Mr Mandelson write a secret letter to Sinn Féin offering a form of amnesty to IRA fugitives, known as "on-the-runs", among other "sweeties".

"I was at a performance of the Royal Ballet visiting Belfast and I was taken out three times during the performance to talk to No 10 about this," Mr Mandelson said. "I said ... I am not prepared to do it because I have my own standing to think of and a secret side letter is not how I want to do business. They came back and said that the prime minister takes a different view, that you do need to make these offers to the republicans and he wants you to write this letter. I said if the prime minister wants to make these offers I am afraid he will have to write his own letter."

The letter was sent and the concessions were formally offered to Sinn Féin at the Weston Park talks in July 2001 six months after Mr Mandelson left office. "Weston Park was basically about conceding and capitulating in a whole number of different ways to republican demands - their shopping list. It was a disaster because it was too much for them ... That was a casualty of my departure, I would say." Mr Mandelson added: "When Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness entered the room you were expected to stand up. They were senior military, they were top brass. Apart from being leaders of Sinn Féin they were leaders of the military council."

The Sinn Féin MPs have always denied being IRA leaders.

John Reid, Mr Mandelson's successor in Northern Ireland, is more supportive of Downing Street's efforts, saying: "If Tony Blair's Labour government never did anything else but bring to an end the longest-running political dispute in European history and the longest running war probably in world history, on and off, it would be worth having the Labour government just for that."

    Blair guilty of capitulating to Sinn Féin - Mandelson, G, 13.3.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,2032430,00.html

Northern Ireland elections

Ulster says yes

Saturday March 10, 2007
Guardian
Leader

The old cry that the people of Northern Ireland wanted peace, but their politicians got in the way, did not always stand up to scrutiny. Many voters, in both communities, directly supported the individuals and organisations that carried out violent acts in their name. But the results of this week's election in the province could hardly have been clearer. Parties that oppose violence and back power-sharing, at least in principle, won well over 90% of the vote on a high turnout. Extremists - both Republican Sinn Féin and Robert McCartney's unionists - struggled. So the electorate backed devolution. Will politicians deliver?

The answer depends almost entirely on the leader of what is now Northern Ireland's largest political organisation, the Democratic Unionist party. There was a time when a high DUP vote would have been seen as fatal to political progress in the province. Ian Paisley made his name as Dr No; as recently as 2005 he said that sharing power "would be treason and we would never be guilty of that". Times change, and so has Dr Paisley, even if the 81-year-old preacher can still fall back into a fiery negativity. He has not said that he will do a deal, but DUP voters went to the polls with the assumption that a vote for his party was a vote for devolution. If he holds off he will be resisting the will of most unionist voters. Defiance would be the foible of a stubborn old man.

Whether agreement is reached by the March 26 deadline set in law after the St Andrews agreement is a different matter. Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary, insisted yesterday that the date is fixed: if no deal is done the government will push ahead instead with direct rule with a green tinge, giving Dublin a greater say and scrapping the Stormont assembly. He sounds like he means it, too, but as a way of forcing the pace it is undermined by the reality that not everyone thinks London would walk away if agreement looked possible. Dr Paisley may want to hold out for a little longer, if only to show that he can. He has run out of other objections to sitting down with Sinn Féin, which has done much more than most people thought possible, including backing the police, and whose leaders are clearly hungry for a deal before the Irish election in May or June.

This week's results underline the new reality of Northern Irish politics, first seen in the 2005 general election, which is that what were once the hardline parties have become mainstream ones. Almost one in three voters backed the DUP and one in four Sinn Féin. The Ulster Unionists were wrecked. The SDLP, with 15.2% of first-preference votes, lost ground, but moderate nationalism is still a political force as moderate unionism is not. Voters who reject sectarian politics backed the Alliance, which gained votes and elected the province's first non-white assembly member, and the Greens, who enter Stormont for the first time.

Are those the telltales of political normalisation? Maybe. Much has been made of the fact that the election focused on issues such as water rates and planning law, not violence. But voters still plumped for parties on religious grounds, and there was no debate between them about how water should be paid for: the DUP and Sinn Féin alike agreed that London should pay. Gordon Brown has already promised a big funding package for development. When he and Mr Hain meet the DUP on March 22, he may face the choice of adjusting that, to stop bills going out in April, or seeing the DUP walk away.

In future largesse is more likely to come from the booming south, already pushing up property prices in the north. All parties want Northern Ireland's corporation tax cut to match the south's 12.5% rate. Mobile-phone charges are been equalised and Dublin is paying for new roads in the north. Devolution or not, such things show that Ireland is slowly reuniting. Dr Paisley may have won the election, but unionism has more of a past than a future.

    Ulster says yes, G, 10.3.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,2030733,00.html

War and peace

March 9, 2007 8:26 PM
The Guardian
Máirtín Ó Muilleoir


Brendan Behan once remarked of an IRA court martial, "they tried me in my absence and sentenced me in my absence, so they can just as well execute me in my absence." No such luxury was afforded UUP leader Reg Empey who was present at the poll counts and in the television studios to see the electorate crash and burn his party try, sentence and condemn his election team.

How did it come to this? From pre-eminent unionist party with David Trimble as lord and master of all he surveyed to political has-beens in the blink of an eye. That's the question genial but hapless UUP leader Reg Empey will be asking himself today.

While the trauma may not be just as profound for SDLP leader Mark Durkan, he knows the middle-class Catholic party which once dominated the nationalist landscape is hemorrhaging votes to Sinn Féin. His older supporters are dying off, his upwardly mobile young professionals jumping ship to the buoyant Sinn Féiners, his assembly team getting greyer and slower. When the new executive gets up and running he will enjoy just one of ten ministries.

The nationalist community has now reached its tipping point. Working class nationalists and republicans have decamped en masse to Sinn Féin. But that's only part of the problem; the middle classes are itchy-assed now too. In prosperous unionist constituencies where the SDLP could always rely on affluent Catholics to reward them with the one nationalist seat, Sinn Féin were rampant. In Lagan Valley, centred on the city of Lisburn where Sinn Féin have virtually no organisation on the ground, voters deserted Mark Durkan's candidate to put in former H-Block prisoner, Paul Butler.

In West Belfast, where Sinn Féin stood mathematical theory on its head to take five out of six seats in a PR fight, the SDLP vote fell by several thousand votes and had to wait to the final nail-biting account to get its policing spokesman elected -- which tells you everything you know about what nationalists feel about the SDLP's premature backing for the PSNI. In North Belfast, eminent barrister and party stalwart for 30 years, Alban Maginness, couldn't get even half a quota against former hunger striker, London bomber, and H-Block escapee, Gerry Kelly. Sinn Fé:in has captured the zeitgeist: they're an all-Ireland party, they appeal to young people and when there was fighting to be done they were in the trenches.

Nationalists weren't terribly fond of the war but, post-conflict, rightly or wrongly, they're full of admiration for those who fought it.

Which isn't necessarily fair but then this is war and peace not politics.

    War and peace, G, 10.3.2007, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mirtn_muilleoir/2007/03/war_and_peace_2.html

Pressure grows on Paisley for power-sharing deal

· DUP leader reiterates objections to Sinn Féin
· March 26 deadline cannot be shifted, insists Hain

Saturday March 10, 2007
Guardian
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent

Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist party, strengthened by victory in the assembly elections, yesterday came under intensive pressure to enter a power-sharing government with Sinn Féin.

Both Tony Blair and the Irish premier Bertie Ahern urged Northern Ireland's political parties not to miss an "opportunity of historic proportions" to re-establish a devolved administration at Stormont. In a joint statement the two prime ministers declared: "The message of the electorate is clear: after so many years of frustration and disappointment, they want Northern Ireland to move on to build a better future together through the devolved institutions."

The DUP, which secured 30% of first preference votes in the election, yesterday once again dismissed the governments' deadline for a deal of March 26 and insisted that Sinn Féin had yet to demonstrate unqualified support for the police and courts. In the immediate aftermath of regaining his Ballymena seat, Mr Paisley declared: "The hard negotiations are now going to start. Sinn Féin are not entitled to be at the table until they declare themselves for democracy."

But the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, said the deadline was immoveable. "The people in the election voted overwhelmingly for a power-sharing executive to be in place on March 26. Now it's time for the politicians to do their jobs for the first time in four years. It's time for Stormont to work or close down. The fact that the DUP were elected on a clear mandate to go into government - provided certain conditions were met, and I'm sure those conditions can be met - has cleared the way for inclusive, power-sharing government for the first time in history. We have never been in a position where the people have spoken with such clarity."

In a sign of frustration, a popular BBC local radio show hosted by Stephen Nolan ran a text poll in which 83% of respondents called for politicians to enter government without further negotiations.

But the arrest of a dissident republican candidate outside a count in Omagh on Thursday evening highlighted potential for further disagreements between the DUP and Sinn Féin over policing.

Gerry McGeough, 46, a former IRA prisoner, and another suspect were taken away by detectives investigating the attempted murder of a UDR soldier in 1981. Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams condemned Mr McGeough's arrest.

Mr Adams and Sinn Féin's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness met Mr Hain at Hillsborough yesterday morning as the talks process resumed. DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson also held discussions with Mr Hain, who travelled to Ballymena later to see Ian Paisley.

Counting continued all afternoon to sort out the final members of the new assembly. In terms of first preference votes, the DUP led the field with 30%, Sinn Féin secured 26%, the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour party 15%, the Ulster Unionist party just under 15% and the cross-community Alliance party 5%.

The veteran unionist politician and former MP Bob McCartney, who opposed power-sharing with republicans, lost his seat in North Down. Anna Lo, the Alliance candidate in south Belfast, became the first minority ethnic member of the Stormont assembly.

The Green party took its first assembly seat in Northern Ireland when Brian Wilson secured his place in North Down. In east Belfast Dawn Purvis of the Progressive Unionist party took the seat formerly held by David Ervine.

Both the DUP and Sinn Féin will be involved in hard-fought negotiations with the Treasury over the size of any financial package awarded to the province.

Mr Hain and both prime ministers have warned that if a deal is not agreed by March 26 they will impose a form of direct rule in which the Irish government is given an enhanced role in running the province.

Voting share

· The DUP gained 30.1% of first preference votes, Sinn Féin 26.2%, the SDLP 15.2%, the UUP 14.9% and the Alliance party 5.2%.

· At the end of the count in the 108-seat assembly, the number of seats won by each party was: DUP 36 seats, Sinn Féin 28, UUP 18, SDLP 16, Alliance 7, Green 1, PUP 1 and Independent 1.

· If the DUP and Sinn Féin can reach agreement, devolved, power-sharing government will be restored on March 26. The DUP is likely to hold four ministries and Sinn Féin three.

· The last devolved power-sharing executive was dissolved in autumn 2002 following the furore over an alleged IRA spy ring at Stormont.

    Pressure grows on Paisley for power-sharing deal, G, 10.3.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,2030718,00.html

5.15pm update

Sinn Féin and DUP start talks with Hain over power-sharing

Friday March 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent

The leaders of Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party have met the Northern Ireland secretary, restarting talks aimed at restoring power-sharing government even before the last seats were distributed in the assembly election.

Gerry Adams and his party's chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, saw Peter Hain at his residence in Hillsborough during the morning.

They were followed in by the DUP's deputy leader, Peter Robinson. Mr Hain was due to travel to Ballymena later to see the Rev Ian Paisley, the DUP's leader.

The two parties consolidated their positions as the dominant political forces in the province today, while the Ulster Unionist party and the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour party slipped back.

Counting will continue into the late afternoon in several constituencies to sort out the final vote transfers that will decide who is to enter the new assembly.

The veteran unionist politician and former MP Bob McCartney, who opposed power-sharing with republicans, did, as anticipated, lose his seat in North Down.

Anna Lo, the Alliance candidate in south Belfast, succeeded in becoming the first ethnic-minority member of the Stormont assembly.

In terms of first preference votes, the DUP led the field with 30%, Sinn Féin secured 26%, the Social Democratic and Labour party 15%, the Ulster Unionist party just under 15% and the cross-community Alliance party 5%.

With 104 of the 108 seats counted, the DUP held 36, Sinn Féin 28, the UUP 16, the SDLP 14, Alliance 7, Progressive Unionist party 1, Green party 1 and there was one win for an independent.

Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist party, strengthened by victory in the assembly elections, is coming under intensive pressure to enter a power-sharing government with Sinn Féin.

Both Tony Blair and the Irish premier Bertie Ahern urged Northern Ireland's political parties not to miss an "opportunity of historic proportions" to re-establish a devolved administration at Stormont.

In a joint statement the two prime ministers declared: "The message of the electorate is clear: after so many years of frustration and disappointment, they want Northern Ireland to move on to build a better future together through the devolved institutions."

The DUP has repeatedly dismissed the governments' deadline of March 26 and insisted that Sinn Féin has yet to demonstrate unqualified support for the police and courts.

The Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, said that the deadline was immoveable.

"The people in the election voted overwhelmingly for a power-sharing executive to be in place on March 26.

"Now it's time for the politicians to do their jobs for the first time in four years.

"It's time for Stormont to work or close down. The fact that the DUP were elected on a clear mandate to go into government - provided certain conditions were met and I'm sure those conditions can be met - has cleared the way for inclusive, power-sharing government for the first time in history.

"There's no scope for weasel words or fudging or for the date to be postponed.

"We have never been in a position where the people have spoken with such clarity."

In a further sign of mounting frustration, the BBC's popular local radio Stephen Nolan show ran a text poll in which 83% of respondents called for politicians to enter government without further negotiations.

But the arrest of a dissident republican candidate outside the count centre in Omagh on Thursday evening highlighted the potential for further disagreements between the DUP and Sinn Féin over policing.

Gerry McGeough, 46, a former IRA prisoner, and another suspect were taken away by detectives investigating the attempted murder of a Ulster Defence Regiment solider in 1981.

Mr Adams condemned McGeogh's arrest, declaring: "He was campaigning openly and attended one of our meetings. He should be released."

    Sinn Féin and DUP start talks with Hain over power-sharing, G, 9.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2030466,00.html

11.15am

Do not miss this opportunity, Blair and Ahern tell Ulster

Friday March 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Hélène Mulholland

Northern Ireland's political parties must not miss an "opportunity of historic proportions' to resume power-sharing, the leaders of the British and Irish governments said today.

As the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin appeared on course to strengthen their hold over their respective sides of the assembly, Tony Blair praised Northern Irish voters for showing "real leadership" in expressing their desire for a return to power-sharing in the province.

The remaining results of Wednesday's election to the 108-member assembly are expected to be confirmed this afternoon, showing an improved share of the vote for the two pro-power-sharing parties.

"The message of the electorate is clear: after so many years of frustration and disappointment, they want Northern Ireland to move on to build a better future together through the devolved institutions," Mr Blair said in a joint statement with the Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern, at an EU summit in Brussels.

"Restoration of the devolved institutions represents an opportunity of historic proportions. It must not be missed."

Mr Blair warned that the March 26 deadline for striking a devolution deal was final but said he thought "now is the moment in Northern Ireland that we can get down to business".

Of the first 72 seats declared, the Democratic Unionists had won 25 and Sinn Féin 24 as ballot-counting resumed today.

Both parties scored their biggest shares of the vote in Northern Ireland history.

Northern Ireland's complex system of proportional representation allowed voters to pick candidates standing for the 108 assembly seats in order of preference and required ballots to be recounted several times.

The DUP secured 30% of first preferences, with Sinn Féin securing 26%, increasing its lead over its nationalist rival, the Social Democratic and Labour party, on just 15%.

The Ulster Unionist party, for decades the dominant force in Northern Ireland politics, won just under 15%. Questioned on whether the March 26 deadline for striking a devolution deal was final, Mr Blair responded: "The date's there and the reason it was called is so people would go into government." "People want to see elected politicians deliver on issues that matter to Northern Ireland."

Mr Ahern said it was the "first time Northern Ireland's been able to have that kind of election on the kind of issues the PM and I deal with every day".

"It's a really good achievement and I'm glad that it's happened," he added.

Mr Blair's Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, warned that politicians in the province had now reached a point where they must either "put up or shut up" over the return of devolved government.

As he prepared to meet the Rev Ian Paisley's DUP and Sinn Féin following their election successes, Mr Hain stressed that legislation put in place following last October's St Andrews talks did not provide any scope for a shadow executive.

He said: "It is either a functioning executive with powers devolved on March 26 or it's dissolution and the politicians stop getting paid, Stormont closes down and we pack up Northern Ireland politics, maybe for years to come.

"There has been a culture of deadlines coming and going in Northern Ireland - sometimes for good reasons - over the last decade. We have now got to the point where there has been such transformation and the people have spoken with such force and clarity that it really is put up time or shut up time." The final results are due to be declared this afternoon.

    Do not miss this opportunity, Blair and Ahern tell Ulster, G, 9.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2030230,00.html

A united Ireland is being created, not by arms but by the lure of cash


By the standards of the past, today's elections - and the prospect of a DUP-Sinn Féin government - are like a lunatic fantasy

Wednesday March 7, 2007
The Guardian
Jonathan Freedland

This is what will happen today and over the rest of this month. Elections will anoint Ariel Sharon, miraculously resurrected from his coma, as Israel's prime minister. They will also establish Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas as his deputy. These two men, mortal enemies for so long, will govern together. The finance ministry will stay in Likud hands, but the education minister will be a veteran of Hamas's armed wing, a man who once served several years in jail for his part in a lethal bombing. After decades spent fighting each other to the death, these two movements will now share power, spending the next year or two arguing about school admissions and local water rates. Their long war is over.

If that sounds like wild, lunatic fantasy, it is - for the Middle East at any rate. But something very much like it is happening before our eyes in Northern Ireland. In Sharon's place is Ian Paisley, the octogenarian embodiment of Unionist intransigence, whose Democratic Unionist party is likely to emerge as the largest single party in today's elections for the Northern Ireland assembly. For Ismail Haniyeh, read Martin McGuinness who will serve as deputy first minister. That's right: McGuinness, widely famed as a former IRA commander, will team up with Paisley, who made a reputation denouncing the IRA as bloodthirsty, murdering bastards whose only place was frying in the fires of hell.

At Paisley's side, as education minister, we may well see Gerry Kelly, a former hunger striker jailed for his part in the IRA bombings of the Old Bailey and Scotland Yard. And yes, one of the big issues before the Paisley administration will be the price of Northern Irish water.

Of course, the analogy is not perfect. (Last time I deployed it, several readers shot back that the IRA never rejected Britain's right to exist, in contrast with Hamas's position on Israel.) But it helps convey the scale of the transformation now underway in Northern Ireland. A place that was riven by violent conflict - euphemistically referred to as the Troubles - is striding towards normality. And those who are crafting this peace are the very same people who made the war.

It makes for some eye-popping transitions. The new general secretary of Sinn Féin, set to be charged with governing Northern Ireland, is officially wanted in Northern Ireland for the shooting of a British soldier 30 years ago. When Sinn Féin's conference recently discussed the party's policy on climate change, the debate was led by one James Monaghan. He's wanted in Colombia, where he skipped bail after allegedly aiding Farc "narco-terrorists". Now he talks about carbon emissions.

The people of Northern Ireland have had a few years to get used to all this, but for those outside it can still come as a delightful shock. You only have to imagine the equivalent changes in Israel-Palestine to see how far the province has come. As Paisley himself put it this week: "The political landscape has been transformed in a way that ... many said was impossible." Among the "many" were Unionism's cheerleaders in Britain, in the Conservative party and in the commentariat. I remember columnists Stephen Glover, Charles Moore and Michael Gove all insisting that the IRA was irredeemably bent on war, that negotiations with republicanism were a treachery doomed to fail. They were all wrong.

Of course, things can unravel. The adrenaline junkies who serve as Northern Ireland's politicians tend to take things to the wire and they still might hesitate. Their deadline for forming a power-sharing executive is midnight on March 26. Expect negotiations to be still underway, both sides trying to extract the best possible deal, at 11.55pm.

But it's hard to see what grounds they would have for failing to do the business now. Unionists have got what they never expected: an IRA declaration that their war is over and the verified decommissioning of their weapons. In January Sinn Féin removed the last obstacle in the way, by agreeing to back policing arrangements for the province. There's not much Paisley can ask for that he hasn't already got. One British official says that if Paisley does not go ahead and form a government it will be because the old warhorse simply "bottled it".

And so the campaign in Northern Ireland has not been about bombs and bullets, or the great national question, but about the humdrum stuff of normal politics. The biggest Belfast rally of recent months was about that increase in water charges.

What's more, the parties have fought an oddly consensual campaign. They differ on education - nationalists tend to oppose selection, Unionists support it - but on the rest there is a striking uniformity. "You cannot put a bus ticket between them," says Mick Fealty, of the indispensable Slugger O'Toole blog.

That's no coincidence. The DUP and Sinn Féin, along with the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP, have spent months hammering out what will, in effect, be the programme for the new devolved executive. They know that, whatever votes are cast today, they will all be in government. Those are the rules of the game, as laid out in the Good Friday agreement: a "mandatory coalition" in which every party with a serious number of seats gets a place at the governing table.

The result is a kind of hyper-normality, in which there can be no real policy disagreements because everyone is going to end up on the same side, governing together. It means Northern Ireland is about to jump from civil war to soggy consensuality, without ever passing through democratic, adversarial politics.

And yet the national question is not going away. It's just being resolved in a new way - with not a shot, nor even an argument, being heard.

The driving force is the economic success of the Irish republic, a surge in prosperity which the north wants a part of. All the main parties are calling on London to reduce Northern Ireland's rate of corporation tax, for example, to bring it into line with the investment-attracting south. Even Ian Paisley is in favour of this little piece of all-Ireland harmonisation.

Meanwhile, the secretary of state Peter Hain won plaudits when he demanded mobile phone companies drop their "roaming" charges across the Irish border, replacing them with one rate for the entire island. He's also legislated for a single electricity market covering north and south. Indeed, Hain has said that a single, Northern Irish economy is unsustainable, that only an "island of Ireland economy" makes sense. Paisley heard that as a pro-nationalist message and called for Hain's resignation. But when business leaders backed Hain, Paisley quietly dropped it.

Gradually and through economics rather than politics - still less armed struggle - Ireland is moving towards a kind of de facto unification. There are plans for a new road linking Dublin to Derry. The Irish government has announced that the north is eligible to compete for a share of Dublin's €1bn national development fund.

Each year that passes, the border separating north and south will come to look more obsolete. It will not be Semtex and Armalites that erase it, but the slower, subtler suasions of wealth and convenience. Normality is coming to Northern Ireland - but it's taken a damn strange route.

    A united Ireland is being created, not by arms but by the lure of cash, G, 7.3.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2028055,00.html

Sinn Fein backs N.Irish police in historic vote

Sun Jan 28, 2007 12:50 PM ET
Reuters



DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein voted to end decades of opposition to Northern Ireland's police force on Sunday, removing a key obstacle to the restoration of a regional power-sharing government in the British province.

Predominantly Catholic Sinn Fein voted to endorse the Protestant-dominated police force in a show of hands at a special meeting in Dublin attended by more than 2,000 delegates.

The vote is a momentous step for the party, political ally of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) which killed nearly 300 police officers during a 30-year campaign against British rule.

    Sinn Fein backs N.Irish police in historic vote, R, 28.1.2007, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2007-01-28T174915Z_01_L26824446_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRISH-POLICING.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-worldNews-6

FACTBOX-Facts about IRA ally Sinn Fein

Sun Jan 28, 2007 12:49 PM ET
Reuters



(Reuters) - Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein voted on Sunday to end decades of opposition to Northern Ireland's police force, removing a key obstacle to the restoration of a regional power-sharing government in the British province.

Here are some facts about Sinn Fein and power-sharing.

* London and Dublin have set a March 26, 2007, deadline for the restoration of a Belfast-based, power-sharing assembly

* The pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has been unwilling to sign up to the timetable until it is convinced Sinn Fein, whose largely Catholic following wants a united Ireland, backs the police and rule of law. Sinn Fein mistrusts a legal system it views as biased in favor of Protestant unionists, who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom.

* Sinn Fein ("We Ourselves") emerged in the early 1900s, when the whole of Ireland was governed by the United Kingdom. It was reorganised in 1917 to seek an independent Irish republic and remains committed to the reunification of Ireland, replacing the partitioned areas created in 1920, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

* Sinn Fein is the political ally of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas. During the height of the "Troubles", the voices of Sinn Fein members were banned from British airwaves.

* It signed the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which largely ended 30 years of sectarian conflict. The accord established a Belfast-based, locally elected assembly to run the province's affairs, in which Catholics shared power with Protestants. The assembly collapsed more than two years ago in a row over the

IRA.

* Sinn Fein is the only political party with elected representatives in both the Republic of Ireland and the British-ruled province of Northern Ireland.

* In the British election in May 2005, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams shrugged off criticism over his party's links to the IRA to comfortably retain his Northern Ireland seat.

* Sinn Fein called on the IRA in April 2005 to end its armed struggle after a series of high-profile crimes such as the killing of popular Belfast man Robert McCartney, which caused international outrage, and a big bank raid in December 2004.

    FACTBOX-Facts about IRA ally Sinn Fein, R, 28.1.2007, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2007-01-28T174909Z_01_L28557637_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-1

12.45pm

Northern Ireland police shielded loyalist killers

Monday January 22, 2007
Agencies
Guardian Unlimited

A loyalist paramilitary gang was involved in up to 15 murders in the 1990s while being protected by Special Branch handlers, a damning report said today.

The report pointed to "disturbing" levels of collusion between the security forces and the paramilitaries.

The document was the result of a three-year inquiry by the Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan. It found that in return for acting as informers, members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) had escaped prosecution.

She found that information on their crimes had been withheld from detectives investigating the killings.

The man at the centre of the scandal, identified in the 160-page report only as informant number one but known to be the former UVF man Mark Haddock, was paid at least £79,840 during the period under investigation, from 1991 to 2003.

The ombudsman concluded that her investigation had established collusion between certain officers within Special Branch and Haddock's UVF unit, based in the city's Mount Vernon district.

Her staff had unearthed intelligence within the policing system - most of it reliable and corroborated by other sources - linking the informants to the murders of 10 people, she said.

The gang was associated with 72 other crimes, including 10 attempted murders, 10 punishment shootings, 13 punishment attacks, a bombing in Monaghan, in the Irish republic, and 17 instances of drug dealing, as well as criminal damage, extortion and intimidation.

The Police Ombudsman's investigators also identified less significant and reliable intelligence linking the UVF men to five more murders.

The revelations are highly damaging for policing in Northern Ireland and for the reputation of the now replaced Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Mrs O'Loan said: "It would be easy to blame the junior officers' conduct in dealing with various informants, and indeed they are not blameless.

"However, they could not have operated as they did without the knowledge and support at the highest level of the RUC and the PSNI [Police Service of Northern Ireland]."

Mrs O'Loan's investigative team interviewed the Northern Ireland chief constable at the time, Sir Ronnie Flanagan. However, up to six officers at the level of assistant chief constable or detective chief superintendent in the Special Branch refused to cooperate. They either did not reply to requests for interviews or their lawyers sent letters on their behalf refusing to take part.

The investigative team did not speak to the loyalist informer at the centre of most of the allegations.

A source close to the £2m inquiry said: "If you've got intelligence that an informant you are handling has murdered and you do nothing, and it happens again and then again and then again, you've got a serial killer on your books who you are paying a salary to, immunising and protecting from prosecution.

"Collusion is the conclusion which emanates from that."

Tony Blair's official spokesman said: "This is a deeply disturbing report about events which were totally wrong and which should never have happened.

"The fact that they did is a matter for profound regret, and the prime minister shares that regret.

"But this is also a report about the past, and what is important now is that, under the new structures introduced along with the formation of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, these events could not happen now.

"What matters at this stage is that the whole community supports that process of transformation."

The then chief constable of the PSNI, Sir Hugh Orde, said the report made shocking reading, but systems were now in place to ensure the situation described would never happen again.

"The report ... doesn't reflect well on the individuals involved, particularly those responsible for their management and oversight," he said.

"While I appreciate that it cannot redress some of the tragic consequences visited upon the families of those touched by the incidents investigated in this report, I offer a wholehearted apology for anything done or left undone."

Sir Hugh said he accepted all the recommendations.

"Significant reorganisation and the new systems and processes to deal with this most difficult area of policing, which we have put in place over the last four and a half years, will ensure that the situation described by the ombudsman could never happen again in Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, said the report had "shone a light into what was a very dark corner of behaviour by a limited number of Special Branch officers in the 1990s".

He said former UVF paramilitaries and police officers alike should stand trial for the crimes.

"There are all sorts of opportunities for prosecutions to follow. The fact that some retired police officers obstructed the investigation and refused to cooperate with the police ombudsman is very serious in itself," Mr Hain said.

Ms O'Loan's inquiry started with the 1997 killing by the UVF unit of a 22-year-old Protestant man, Raymond McCord, who had been a member of the group.

The victim's father - also called Raymond McCord - said Haddock, the UVF's commander at the time, was protected by police because he was on the Special Branch payroll and was providing information on UVF activities.

Mr McCord said he had turned to Ms O'Loan after senior police officers dismissed him as "some sort of crank".

The published report did not identify by name any of the retired Special Branch officers involved in collusion. A a secret version that does include the names, however, was delivered last Friday to Mr Orde, Mr Hain and a handful of other British officials.

Johnston Brown, one of the former detectives arrested and questioned by Ms O'Loan's investigators, alleged many rank-and-file detectives had been prevented from doing their jobs by a Special Branch elite that hoarded information.

Mr Brown, who was a detective in the police's criminal investigations division, said Special Branch colleagues had repeatedly blocked efforts to solve crimes involving members of the UVF and another outlawed loyalist group, the Ulster Defence Association.

In a statement, a group of former Special Branch officers rejected the reported findings. The former officers said they had always acted in the best pursuit of justice and had "nothing to be ashamed of".

    Northern Ireland police shielded loyalist killers, G, 22.1.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1996126,00.html

Paramilitaries 'killed 10 while protected by police,' says report

January 22, 2007
The Times Online
Sam Knight and agencies

A gang of loyalist paramilitaries committed at least 10 murders while under police protection in Northern Ireland, a damning report found today.

Downing Street described the findings of the three-year investigation "deeply disturbing" while relatives of those harmed and killed by the informers expressed outrage that no police officer will be prosecuted as a result of the inquiry.

Northern Ireland's Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, concluded in her 162-page report that officers in the Special Branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary colluded with members of the Ulster Volunteer Force in north Belfast throughout the 1990s.

More than 100 retired police officers were interviewed, including 24 under caution, as part of the inquiry and several, including three retired assistant chief constables and seven detective chief superintendents refused to co-operate.

Mrs O'Loan said her inquiry, which was immediately rejected by the Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers Association, had been the victim of a "a deliberate strategy" of obstruction from the accused police officers and had been unable to track down crucial evidence, such as sections of murder files and intelligence documents.

Nonetheless, she reported that during their collaboration with the UVF, police handlers destroyed crucial evidence, "babysat" their informers through interviews when they were arrested and allowed their agents to commit 10 murders and 72 other crimes, including drug dealing, revenge attacks and the bombing of Sinn Fein offices. Less reliable evidence linked the UVF members to a further five murders.

The investigation did not name the prime UVF informer, Mark Haddock, who was the leader of the group at the time, but called him "Informant 1". The report revealed that he was paid nearly £80,000 for his co-operation during the 1990s and saw his weekly pay increase within weeks of the murder of a Catholic taxi driver.

Presenting her findings today Mrs O’Loan said that the collusion between the police and the UVF, Northern Ireland's oldest paramilitary organisation, could not have taken place "without the knowledge and support at the highest level of the RUC and the PSNI".

Although she observed that police intelligence gathering had changed greatly since 2003, the last year she investigated, Mrs O'Loan made 20 recommendations for the Police Service of Northern Ireland and urged that murder inquiries be re-opened in cases where she had found evidence of collusion.

Sir Hugh Orde, the chief constable of PSNI, accepted all her recommendations and said: "The report makes shocking, disturbing and uncomfortable reading."

"While I appreciate that it cannot redress some of the tragic consequences visited upon the families of those touched by the incidents investigated in this report, I offer a wholehearted apology for anything done or left undone."

With policing such a critical issue in efforts to restart self-government in Northern Ireland in March, Mrs O'Loan's investigation, the largest ever carried out by the Ombudsman, comes at a sensitive time.

Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, said that the evidence of co-operation between the police and Protestant paramilitaries in Belfast was just "the tip of the iceberg" but maintained that Sinn Fein did not want to obstruct efforts to reform the current policing arrangements.

"I think it confirms what families have been saying for a very long time - those families bereaved by collusion and state terrorism," he said.

"It is immaterial if it makes our job easier or harder," he said. "The main imperative is we have to get to the bottom of this and how do we do that? We do that not just by being a part of accountable mechanisms."

Dermot Ahern, the Irish Foreign Minister said: "Clearly, elements of the RUC Special Branch had lost all moral compass at that time. I note that there are to be further investigations on foot of this report."

"Police officers implicated in these appalling acts must be held accountable for their actions."

Tony Blair's official spokesman called the Ombudsman's findings "a deeply disturbing report about events... that should never have happened. The fact that they did is a matter of profound regret and the Prime Minister shares that regret."

The investigation was triggered by the persistence of Raymond McCord, whose 22-year-old son, Raymond McCord Junior, a former RAF signaller, was found beaten to death in quarry in a north Belfast in 1997.

Convinced that his son was killed by UVF fighters on the payroll of the police force, Mr McCord persuaded Mrs O'Loan to investigate the killing, and her inquiry was quickly widened to examine crimes committed by known police informers in north Belfast from 1991 to 2003.

Her inquiry showed that Haddock, the UVF commander, was known to have ordered McCord's murder and was also implicated in the killings of Sharon McKenna, a Catholic taxi driver, in 1993 and Peter McTasney, a Catholic man shot apparently at random by the UVF in Belfast two years earlier. Haddock was also suspected of the double murder of Gary Convie and Eamon Fox on a building site in 1994.

In each of the cases, Haddock was arrested and questioned dozens of times, in many cases by his own police handlers who protected him from implicating himself and helping to destroy evidence as it came to light. Mrs O'Loan recorded today that police officers described "babysitting" their informer and feeling "like a gooseberry" as they let him be released without charge.

Haddock is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for beating a pub doorman, Trevor Gowdy, with a hammer and hatchet in 2002.

Mr McCord said today that he was disappointed that no criminal prosecutions would be brought against the officers implicated in the inquiry. At a news conference, Justin Felice, the Ombudsman's senior investigator, said that Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland had ruled that there were "insufficiencies of evidence".

He also called for a public inquiry into his son's murder and all other cases of state collusion during the Troubles.

But Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said the province was already "awash with inquiries" and that it would be unlikely to uncover anything new. "There is nothing at all to suggest that such an inquiry will uncover any new or additional evidence that has not already been unearthed by the Police Ombudsman during the painstaking investigation conducted over the past three years."

    Paramilitaries 'killed 10 while protected by police,' says report, Ts, 22.1.1007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2560214,00.html

4.45pm

Progressive Unionist leader dies

Monday January 8, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest and agencies

David Ervine, the loyalist paramilitary turned leader of the Progressive Unionist party, has died aged 53.

Mr Ervine, who suffered a heart attack, stroke and brain haemorrhage at the weekend, died in hospital today.

The PUP is the parliamentary wing of the terrorist Ulster Volunteer Force; both are committed to the Good Friday peace agreement.

Mr Ervine himself had served time in the Maze prison in the 1970s for his role in a car bomb, before going into parliamentary politics.

His wife Jeanette and two sons were by his bedside when he died at the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast.

Ken Wilkinson, one of his closest political associates, said he was devastated by his party leader's death.

Mr Wilkinson said: "I don't think Northern Ireland realises the sacrifices this man made.

"He was a good friend to me, but more than that, it's a sad a loss to the people of Northern Ireland.

"When they look back in history, they will see what David Ervine contributed."

Mr Ervine, a member of the Stormont assembly for East Belfast, was taken to hospital after suffering a heart attack at his home yesterday.

Mr Ervine led the PUP since 2002.

In 1998 he became one of two PUP assembly members, and retained his seat as the sole PUP member of the devolved but suspended assembly in 2003.

The UVF declared its ceasefire in 1994.

    Progressive Unionist leader dies, G, 8.1.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,1985605,00.html

2pm

Blair returns home to warn Sinn Féin over devolution

Thursday January 4, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent

Attempts to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland lurched into crisis today as the prime minister returned early from his Christmas holiday to confront fresh threats of political breakdown.

Downing Street said that Tony Blair had come back from Florida one day sooner than intended after Sinn Féin suggested it might postpone its crucial party conference, due later this month. The meeting is expected to ratify support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

The fact that the prime minister has had to make such an urgent intervention illustrates the deep gulf of distrust still dividing the republican movement from its prospective partner in a power-sharing administration, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP).

The timetable to achieve a fully restored assembly is now looking increasingly tight. The current shadow assembly is due to be dissolved on January 30. Fresh elections are scheduled for early March and the new Stormont administration should be installed by March 26.

But Sinn Féin left it until last week to hold a meeting of its national executive to agree to call the party conference, or ard fheis, on policing. Any further delay in reaching a historic compromise and agreeing to support the PSNI would derail the timetable.

It would also rob the prime minister of securing what will otherwise be one of the main legacies of his time in office.

The Democratic Unionist MP Sammy Wilson suggested that the prime minister could move back the March 26 deadline to give Sinn Féin time to deal with its internal difficulties. Many DUP officials believe that Sinn Féin needs a lengthy "decontamination period" before former IRA members can be trusted to work with the police.

"If Sinn Féin require more time to deal with internal dissent, then the government should postpone the setting up of a devolved administration to let them sort out their problems," Mr Wilson said.

"What they cannot do, and what we will not cooperate in, is the setting up of an executive which includes those who have not given their full support to the police."

There has been growing unease with the mainstream republican movement over support for the police. For decades republicans were at war with what was then the RUC. Dissident republican groups have held meetings to coordinate opposition to the reformed PSNI.

Those who back active republican paramilitary groups - such as the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), the Continuity IRA and Real IRA - view a deal with the police in advance of a reunited Ireland as tantamount to accepting partition and the British government's right to rule Northern Ireland.

Republicans' opposed to Sinn Féin's strategy have claimed that pressure has been brought to bear upon them to mute their opposition to the policy.

Davy Hyland, the assembly member for Newry and Armagh, who has been deselected in advance of the next election, has announced that he is leaving the party over the issue.

He has been critical of proposals to endorse the police and is threatening to stand as an independent.

Most of the recent haggling between Sinn Féin and the DUP has been over when, and if, control of the police will be devolved to Stormont, as it is in Scotland.

In a brief statement from Downing Street at lunchtime, Mr Blair warned that devolution would only go ahead if there was clear agreement from Sinn Féin that it would support the police and that the DUP would deliver on power sharing.

"It is only on this basis and with this clarity that we can proceed to an election," Mr Blair declared.

"I am confident that both parties want to see progress and will honour their commitments. But there is no point in proceeding unless there is such clarity."

Blair returns home to warn Sinn Féin over devolution, G, 4.1.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,1982943,00.html