Suspension 'could hit key decision-making'

Northern Ireland could lose any influence it has over key decisions affecting its people if the power sharing government is suspended following moves to kick Sinn Fein out of office, it was claimed today.

As Assembly members prepared to debate two unionist motions seeking to remove Martin McGuinness and Bairbre de Brun from office, SDLP minister Brid Rodgers urged unionists and republicans to abandon confrontation and implement the Good Friday Agreement in full.

The North's agriculture minister said: "It is extremely frustrating that once again we are going through a period of political instability when there are a lot of important challenges facing this executive.

"If you take my portfolio, we have managed to weather a series of crises in farming and are trying to take forward a strategy aimed at bringing the industry through all the difficulties.

"We are entering a crucial period of negotiations in the run-up to the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy but Northern Ireland could lose any chance it has of ensuring its interests are protected in the negotiations by losing its executive and its ability to influence UK policy."

The Upper Bann MLA confirmed that her party would not be supporting today’s motions from David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists and the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists to expel the Education and Health Ministers from the multi-party executive.

The Assembly is expected to spend four hours debating the exclusion motions, with Mr Trimble due to launch the debate with a 30-minute speech outlining the case for Sinn Fein’s expulsion.

Sinn Fein will have 30 minutes to rebutt.

Mr Trimble’s motion is seeking Sinn Fein’s removal from the executive on the grounds that it is "not committed to non-violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means".

Mr Paisley and his deputy Peter Robinson’s motion is more explicit, citing the failure of the IRA to disarm, the maintenance of its terrorist threat and ongoing activity at home and abroad, its links to Sinn Fein and the alleged involvement of several leading members of the party in the terror group as reasons.

Mr McGuinness last night denied weekend press reports quoting security sources claiming he was now chief of staff of the IRA, in a move being interpreted as a prelude to decommissioning.

The Mid Ulster MP said the reports were "bogus, malicious rubbish" timed to give "credence and cover" to the unionists’ bid to remove him from office.

Under Assembly voting procedures the motions must command a majority of unionist MLAs and a majority of nationalists if they are to succeed.

But with Sinn Fein and John Hume’s moderate nationalist SDLP opposing them, it is believed they will fail.

The spotlight will then fall on David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists to see if their ministers will resign from the power sharing government in an attempt to force decommissioning and Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid to suspend the political institutions.

Hardline Ulster Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson last night expected Mr Trimble to outline at Stormont what course of action the UUP would take if the Assembly motions failed.

The Lagan Valley MP claimed the exclusion motions marked a "defining moment" for republicanism.

"The Republican Movement must either choose to immediately decommission or democracy," he declared.

"It must choose to either follow exclusively peaceful means or if it will remain wedded to the discredited ideology of international terrorism."

Democratic Unionist MP Nigel Dodds also warned republicans that a one-off act of IRA decommissioning was "clearly not going to satisfy unionists or the population at large".