McDowell sticks to his guns in SF row

MICHAEL MCDOWELL stuck to his guns in a robust face-to-face confrontation with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness over his alleged "criminalising of Sinn Féin".

At a meeting between the Government and Sinn Féin leadership, Mr McDowell was backed by Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen as he stood by his comments on IRA activities and its links to the party.

Rejecting Sinn Féin's complaints that the Government was picking on them, the justice minister said his stance on the IRA and the Republican movement reflected intelligence gathered by the Garda Síochána.

The meeting between Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Mr Cowen, Mr McDowell and the Sinn Féin delegation of Mr Adams, Mr McGuinness, Bairbre de Brúin and Alex Maskey was held on the fringes of the peace process talks between Mr Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Northern political parties.

Between the two meetings, Sinn Féin spent an hour and a half with the governments emphasising the pressure on the party to deliver upon ending Republican paramilitarism.

Mr Adams said he would be seeking a separate meeting with the Government to address what he termed the criminalising of Sinn Féin.

The encounter was the first meeting between Mr McDowell and the Sinn Féin leadership since his statement that the IRA was funding the party through criminal activity.

Recently, the minister also compared Sinn Féin's growth to the threat posed to democracy by the Nazis in the 1930s. Following the talks, aimed at injecting momentum into the peace process, Mr Blair said there needed to be a breakthrough before the European elections in June.

Mr Ahern agreed the situation needed to be resolved urgently.

"We need to fast-track the political situation and get the institutions up and running within a reasonable timeframe," he said.