Suspend Stormont to save power sharing, urges NI first minister
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Version 0 of 1. Northern Ireland’s first minister, Peter Robinson, wants a four-week adjournment of the Stormont assembly to try to solve the crisis that threatens to bring down power sharing. Ahead of a meeting with David Cameron in Downing Street on Tuesday, the Democratic Unionist party leader said the hiatus would be used for talks aimed at resolving unionists’ loss of faith in their Sinn Féin power-sharing partners. The threat to the devolved government in Belfast has been caused by allegations of ongoing Provisional IRA (PIRA) activity, and in particular the revenge killing of ex-IRA prisoner Kevin McGuigan in August. After the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, George Hamilton, said he believed individual PIRA members were involved in the McGuigan murder, the Ulster Unionist party pulled out of the five-party coalition at Stormont in protest. Robinson and the DUP however have so far resisted following the UUP out of the administration and criticised their unionist rivals for being “irresponsible” and running away from the “political battlefield”. Related: First minister criticises UUP for quitting Northern Ireland's power-sharing deal The first minister has said it cannot be “business as usual” when the assembly reopens next Monday after the summer recess. Instead, the DUP want to suspend the parliament for a month for intense negotiations aimed at establishing mechanisms to prevent what unionists see as further republican breaches of the peace process. Robinson’s party colleague, Jeffrey Donaldson MP, suggested on Monday that some form of ceasefire monitoring system should be established that would be staffed by international security experts. This would be modelled on the Independent Monitoring Commission that regularly examined the status of the IRA and loyalist paramilitary ceasefires up to 2005. Prior to Cameron’s meeting with Robinson, the prime minister’s official spokeswoman said it was “an opportunity for both of them to discuss the latest political situation in Northern Ireland and how we can continue to move forward”. She added: “We are clear we want to work with parties there to implement the Stormont House agreement.” The five parties in government were unable to implement the Stormont House agreement signed last year in Belfast, mainly over Sinn Féin objections to welfare reforms and cuts. But the PSNI’s statement that the PIRA still exists, even though the chief constable stressed that the republican leadership did not sanction the McGuigan murder, has undermined unionist support for continued power sharing with Sinn Féin. The Dublin government has joined London in seeking to prevent the Belfast devolved administration from collapsing. Taoiseach Enda Kenny attended a security briefing headed by the Garda commissioner, Noirin O’Sullivan, in the Irish capital on Tuesday morning on the subject of alleged ongoing PIRA activities. Meanwhile the Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, is in Dublin for talks with the Irish deputy prime minister, Joan Burton, the foreign minister, Charlie Flanagan, and the justice minister, Frances Fitzgerald, to discuss measures aimed at pulling power sharing in the north back from the brink. |