Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams will today signal his party’s reluctance to get caught in a Stormont Assembly that amounts to little more than a talking shop.

The Rev Ian Paisley will have to talk directly to Sinn Féin sooner or later, he was told today.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his British counterpart Prime Minister Tony Blair will today review their plan for reviving devolution in Northern Ireland at talks in Downing Street.

The Democratic Unionists will veto any attempt to go back to the type of devolution which existed in the North under the Good Friday Agreement, a senior member of the party warned today.