Breakthrough deal close in North

A BREAKTHROUGH deal to keep power-sharing alive was tantalisingly close last night as both sides in the Northern stand-off were bluntly told to “share pain”.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen and his British counterpart Gordon Brown ploughed into a second night of hectic negotiations with Sinn Féin and the DUP as a compromise on the crisis-trigger issues of parades and devolving justice was pushed at round table talks in Hillsborough Castle.

Sinn Féin trading reform of how parade and march routes are decided in exchange for the DUP agreeing to justice and police control devolving to the Assembly by May has emerged as the way to break the deadlock as both premiers indicated talks would not stretch into a third night.

Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin was cautiously optimistic of getting a framework blueprint, branding the talks “positive and constructive.” But DUP leader Peter Robinson said he would not be pushed into a deal.

Republicans are keen to transfer justice before the expected British general election on May 6, while the DUP want a replacement body to rule on where Orange Order parades can march.

The two prime ministers raced to the North on Monday to try and hammer out a deal after it became clear the issue was on the brink of derailing the power-sharing executive forcing early Assembly elections.

The emergency talks ran onto 3am yesterday morning before resuming a few hours later as Dublin and London try to thrash-out a deal which would see both sides “share the pain” of completing the final major act of devolving powers under the Good Friday and St Andrew’s agreements.

At one stage, Mr Brown broke off from the talks to discuss the situation with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Mr Martin remained upbeat: “Both governments remain satisfied at the level of engagement by all of the parties and the party leaders and indeed by the participants in the discussions. They are determined to see a resolution to this.”

Sinn Féin MP Conor Murphy warned failure would plunge the North into dangerous territory.

“The consequence of failure is that we don’t have a functioning executive. If we don’t have a functioning executive, we don’t have functioning institutions.”