‘Game on’ for power-sharing deal in North, says Adams
The republican leader’s upbeat assessment came after an 80-minute meeting with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern ahead of crunch devolution talks in Scotland tomorrow.
The move added to the air of cautious optimism surrounding the St Andrew’s summit that a breakthrough deal on setting up a cross-community Executive at Stormont can be achieved before the November 24 deadline imposed by Dublin and London.
Mr Adams insisted it was now “game on” for a ground-breaking agreement between republicans and Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
“Sinn Féin is resolute about making an effort to get the institutions up and running before November 24. The issue is, of course, that they have to be within the terms of the Good Friday Agreement,” he said.
The Sinn Féin leader also noted his party and the DUP were united in pushing for a “peace fund” from Irish and British taxpayers to inject hundreds of millions of euro into the Northern economy as well as health and social services in local communities.
“There are big expectations. I can see it in my own constituency,” he said.
“In fairness to the DUP, they do have challenges. They do have problems that they have to address. But let’s go forward with goodwill and let’s go forward to make this happen.”
The three-day talks begin in St Andrew’s tomorrow night with a meeting between Mr Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to finalise the “heads of agreement” document they want party leaders to accept during intensive talks on Thursday and Friday.
No final settlement is expected to be reached in Scotland, but it is hoped to lay the foundations for any deal before the November deadline. The DUP have made it clear they want commitments on republican acceptance of civil policing and guarantees the IRA cannot return to violence and organised criminality.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan also held talks with the Taoiseach yesterday and expressed concern that the British Government intended to change the way the Executive operates if it is restored.
He stated he was “reasonably optimistic” that if a deal was not achieved at St Andrew’s, a road map and timetable to a solution would be.
Sinn Féin also expressed concerns that the Irish Government’s focus on the North may have been distracted by problems within the Coalition between Fianna Fáil and the PDs.
“There may be concerns that the Government may be unfocused and let’s hope that isn’t the case, because there is no more important work than what is coming up,” Mr Adams said.
