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Gerry Adams tells Theresa May DUP deal puts her in breach of Good Friday Agreement | Gerry Adams tells Theresa May DUP deal puts her in breach of Good Friday Agreement |
(35 minutes later) | |
Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams has said he told Theresa May that she is in breach of the Good Friday Agreement. | Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams has said he told Theresa May that she is in breach of the Good Friday Agreement. |
Mr Adams, who is President of Sinn Fein, met the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street along with other senior figures in the party. | |
In a statement to reporters outside afterwards, Mr Adams said: "We told her very directly that she was in breach of the Good Friday Agreement, and we itemised those matters in which she was in default in relation to that agreement." | |
He confirmed they had also discussed the possibility of a referendum on Irish unity. | |
Ms May is currently engaged in talks with the Democratic Unionist Party over a so-called "confidence and supply" arrangement that give the Conservatives a majority in the House of Commons and the ability to form a government. | |
It has long been speculated that such an agreement would leave the government in breach of its duties under the Nothern Irish power sharing arrangement, signed on Good Friday in 1998. | |
That agreement assigns the British government the role of broker between Irish republicans and unionists, a role that Mr Adams said would be compromised if the government was in some way indebted politically to the DUP. | |
Northern Ireland voted by a narrow margin to remain in the European Union. The possibility of the re-establishing of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland as a consequence of the UK's decision to leave the EU is among the first items UK and EU negotiators have agreed to discuss when talks begin next week. | |
Northern Ireland is currently without a government, after Sinn Fein won the largest number of seats in the assembly at Stormont for the first time this year. |