Murphy faces grilling on peace process

Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy will tomorrow be quizzed on the fate of the North's peace process by both British and Irish politicians.

The Secretary of State is attending a session in Manchester of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body which includes representatives from the Westminster and the Dail as well as the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies and bodies from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

After formally presenting current government thinking on the bid for permanent peace in Northern Ireland, Mr Murphy is set to face questions on a broad range of connected issues from the parliamentary representatives.

The occasion will also be marked by a presentation to the Ulster Secretary on his 54th birthday by joint chairman of the group, Labour’s David Winnick and Brendan Smith of Fianna Fail.

The political organisation was established in 1990 as a then-unique parliamentary link between Westminster and the Dail after decades of mainly unofficial-only contact between representatives of parliaments on both sides of the Irish Sea.

There are 25 British and 25 Irish members drawn from the upper and lower houses of the two parliaments as well as elected nominees from Wales, Scotland and the offshore islands.

This week’s two-day meeting was also being attended for the first time by representatives of the Scandinavian countries’ Nordic Council.

Questions lined up for Mr Murphy – who returned to the Northern Ireland office in the recent government reshuffle after previously serving as a deputy to former Secretary of State Mo Mowlam – include, as well as the peace process issue, queries on the future of the contentious nuclear waste reprocessing facility at Sellafield, as well as the level of Government backing being given to the joint Irish-Scottish bid to secure the staging of the European Nations Soccer Championship in 2008.