Ministers in fresh bid to resolve policing row
Secretary of State Shaun Woodward and Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin will today begin a new push to resolve the Stormont devolution row.
A meeting between the pair, scheduled for this evening, will review efforts to secure the transfer of policing and justice powers to the Assembly.
Further dialogue involving the First and Deputy First Minister, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, is likely to follow in forthcoming days.
However, the talks timetable may be complicated by Mr Robinson’s limited availability in light of the health problems of his MP wife Iris.
A DUP spokesman yesterday said the party leader would be “out of circulation” this week “due to family circumstances”. Mrs Robinson has announced that she is quitting politics because of depression.
Today’s meeting between Mr Woodward and Mr Martin follows a commitment given in a joint statement by the Prime Minister and Taoiseach before Christmas.
Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen said the pair would meet in early January to “review progress” towards an Assembly vote on taking on the extra powers.
Mr McGuinness had claimed that the process would be in “deep trouble” if a date for transfer was not agreed by Christmas. That timetable has passed with no public signs of a breakthrough in the impasse between the DUP and Sinn Fein.
The DUP has been pressing for confidence-building measures for unionists as part of a deal, with the abolition of the Parades Commission a central demand.
In their December 17 statement, Mr Brown and Mr Cowen sought to play down the continuing stand-off between the two parties, saying: “We believe that there are no differences incapable of resolution and are optimistic the parties can find early agreement.”
