Assembly elections in North ‘must take place’
However, the Sinn Féin chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, warned that no elections this year could spell the end of the Good Friday Agreement and party leader Gerry Adams also said time was running out to save the peace process.
While holding meetings with Mr McGuinness and Northern Ireland secretary of state Paul Murphy, Mr Cowen said the need for elections was the Government’s view since the institutions were suspended. “We just simply have to have elections. That is the Irish Government’s position from the first day it was suggested to us they were going to be suspended. It was the day they were suspended.
“We have never agreed with that position. We have constantly argued for their reinstatement, for dates so that people can actually recognise them, that the responsibilities they can take up have every prospect of being adjudicated on by people. That is what democracy is about.”
According to Mr McGuinness the election should have happened in May and warned that if it did not this year, it would be politically disastrous.
After talks with UUP leader David Trimble in Stormont, Mr Adams said there was a limited window of opportunity to resolve the problems and accused loyalists opposed to the process of restarting violence after a peaceful Summer to destabilise progress.
Mr McGuinness also described the threats against Catholic members of the district policing partnerships in the North as disgraceful and unjustifiable.
