Last minute efforts behind set-piece settlement

INTENSIVE last minute negotiations between the DUP and Sinn Féin (SF) led to the North’s monumental power-sharing deal yesterday.

Every detail of the set-piece settlement was carefully choreographed to ensure both sides emerged looking like winners.

Deputy DUP leader Peter Robinson led his party’s negotiations with SF throughout Sunday, as Ian Paisley continued to give his church duties priority over politics on the Lord’s day.

His decision led to some anxious moments for republicans, who had to wait until yesterday morning for the DUP leader to sign-off on the deal and give the go-ahead for the historic joint statements at Stormont, which British Prime Minister Tony Blair greeted with joy.

“Everything we have done over the last 10 years has been a preparation for this moment,” he said.

Once the DUP Executive agreed, on Saturday afternoon, to preserve party unity by passing a compromise resolution to share power with Sinn Féin, but not until May, the way was cleared to facilitate the delicate stretching of the March 26 devolution “deadline”.

Even DUP hardliners like MP Gregory Campbell were privy to the weekend dealings with their one time sworn enemies in Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin pressed for power-sharing to begin on May 1 while the DUP wanted May 15. The two parties finally settled for the May 8 compromise.

A handshake between Mr Paisley and Mr Adams was considered too much, too soon, but a compromise on seating was arranged where the pair would sit at a right-angled table corner together.

They did not speak directly on camera after sanctioning each other’s prepared texts.

Sinn Féin president Mr Adams had arrived at Stormont’s Parliament Buildings at 8.30am as he prepared to take a telephone call from Mr Blair in Downing Street at just after 9am.

Mr Blair was anxious that nothing should derail what he sees as one of the defining achievements of his premiership before he leaves the political stage in June.

After concluding talks with the SF president, the British Prime Minister telephoned Mr Paisley at 9.20am, stressing that the DUP was making the right decision for its voters. Some 25 minutes later, Mr Paisley arrived at Stormont to begin a straight-talking session with his party’s Assembly members.

At 11.01am, the grand old man of loyalism sat down with Mr Adams in the Members Dining Room, as the DUP and Sinn Féin thrashed out the final details.

Then, 10 minutes after noon, images of the two men seated together were flashed live around the world as Mr Paisley insisted his commitment to sharing power with republicans from May 8 was “binding”, and Mr Adams remarked that a new era of politics on the island of Ireland had begun.

Mr Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern then consulted by telephone as they plotted a course through the next six weeks and beyond.