Devolution relies on ‘tough’ leadership

FOREIGN Minister Dermot Ahern last night called on Sinn Féin and the DUP to show “tough” leadership in order to make power-sharing work.

Mr Ahern warned both sides to act positively as they faced each other for the first time at the Programme for Government committee today at Stormont.

That meeting is seen as crucial to easing forward the transitional assembly due to be set up this Friday.

It is slated to run until January and will be replaced with a newly elected body in early March. That will herald the crunch moment for devolution, when the DUP will have to formally go into power-sharing with republicans, and Sinn Féin ministers must pledge allegiance to the police and courts system.

“Sometimes parties have to make tough decisions in the wider interest. This is one of those times,” Mr Ahern said at a commemoration of republican leader Sean Moylan in Cork.

“If both sides fail to rise to the challenge of devolved government there will be no election in March, the Assembly will close and the governments will move to Plan B.

“At this stage I don’t believe it will come to that. We expect preparations for government to move into a new gear after November 24,” he said.