McGuinness puts focus on two governments

SINN FÉIN will be looking to Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern to reactivate cross-Border bodies and enhance North-South co-operation if their plan to achieve power-sharing at Stormont by March fails, Martin McGuinness said yesterday.

In the third of a series of meetings across Northern Ireland to consider Sinn Féin’s proposal for republicans to support the police, the Mid-Ulster MP said there was no way he would ask young nationalists to sign up to a British police service.

Mr McGuinness also told over 200 republicans in Lurgan that Sinn Féin’s opponents would be disappointed if they expected hardline republicans to pose a serious challenge to his party.