Talks with Sinn Fein possible - DUP

A senior member of the Rev Ian Paisley’s hard-line Democratic unionists today held out the prospect of the party cutting a deal with Sinn Fein.

Mr William Hay, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said if republicans gave certain guarantees, the DUP would be prepared to “sit down and do business with them like any other constitutional party”.

He warned however that he did not see any evidence that the republican movement was going to move down the road to exclusively democratic means.

Mr Hay, a former mayor of Derry, said: “I think first of all we need to have a clear message from paramilitaries that their war is over and especially from the republican movement that there is a clear timetable of dismantling the IRA.”

Mr Hay, who sits on the Northern Ireland Policing Board which Sinn Fein has so far refused to join, told RTE radio that the DUP would have to be reassured that the republican movement was genuine and committed to achieving their goals through politics, instead of “through the barrel of a gun”.

“Now if we can get those clear guarantees from the republican movement we as a party would then sit down and do business with them like any other constitutional party, because we feel the threat from violence is over,” he said.