Northern talks pass deadline as parties inch toward deal
Hopes of finally cutting a deal on devolving justice powers to the Assembly had caused the Taoiseach to cancel his schedule so he could be ready to fly to Hillsborough, but the talks dragged on into the night instead.
Dublin and London allowed their 48-hour deadline for an agreement to lapse as the DUP and Sinn Féin appeared to be inching towards sorting out their key divisions.
The Hillsborough talks stretched on until 5am on Friday before resuming later in the morning as both sides considered a blueprint drawn-up by Brian Cowen and British premier Gordon Brown.
Hopes of an agreement ebbed and flowed through the day, but DUP leader Peter Robinson said he was not interested in “threats or deadlines”.
Mr Robinson held firm to the DUP stand on a total overhaul of how Orange Order parades are routed.
“You will not reach an agreement here today or any other day unless the parties that are here and talking are prepared to stretch, that’s what it comes down to.
“Accommodation is what is the outcome of any successful negotiation process and people don’t get everything that they want and we recognise that, but there are key principles that have to be established.
“We want a deal that we can go out and sell to the community in Northern Ireland.
“I believe honestly that people do want to have a successful outcome and we will stretch and stay here until the very end to see if that’s possible,” he said.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan called for the two major parties to compromise.
“I would like to think we are on the threshold of a very big choice – either we can go for completion of devolution or we can go for a complete mess, and people I believe out there want things to work,” he said.
Mr Brown and the Taoiseach raced to the North last Monday when Sinn Féin signalled it would collapse power-sharing and force fresh Assembly elections unless a date for devolving justice powers was set.
Three days of intensive negotiations ended in failure as the two premiers pulled out of Hillsborough on Wednesday, but Foreign Minister Micheál Martin and Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward remained behind to chair the all-party talks.
