Durkan rejects 'rolling devolution'

Northern Ireland needs more than a return to rolling devolution if politicians fail to reach agreement next month on power sharing, a nationalist leader said tonight.

SDLP leader Mark Durkan ruled out a revival of the type of Assembly Northern Ireland had in the 1980s, following calls by senior Ulster Unionist Reg Empey calling for the 108 MLAs to be given a greater say over the running of the province.

Empey told Ulster Unionists last night that if a deal was not struck at crucial peace process talks in Kent next month, Assembly members should be given some “meaningful statutory function to perform in the governance” of the North.

“The Assembly has been in suspension for nearly two years and if early indications are to be believed, some parties would be quite happy to dribble on in our present limbo until well after the local government and parliamentary elections next year,” Empey said.

With the Ulster Unionists due to launch proposals soon, Empey would not go into detail about how we would like to see MLAs exercise power in the event of no deal.

But he denied claims by Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson that he was advocating their proposal of a Corporate Assembly, where Stormont committees would assume responsibility for the running of government departments.

“The Corporate Assembly model treats Stormont as a large local council,” Empey said. “It is not, and government departments cannot be run like a local council.”

After a meeting in Belfast with former US President Bill Clinton, Mr Durkan said that if Empey was advocating rolling devolution, where the Assembly would scrutinise the work of direct rule ministers from Westminster in the hope that one day they would get its powers back, it was unacceptable.

“In the past (Ulster Unionist MLA) David McNarry has suggested something like the (James) Prior Assembly in the 1980s, with the Assembly scrutinising direct rule,” the Foyle Assembly member said.

“In our view that does not go far enough. We need proposals for the return of all the functions to the Assembly and to the other institutions, such as the north-south arrangements and the east-west.

“We want to stick to the template of the Agreement and we notice Reg is not addressing strand-two issues on north-south arrangements.

“The SDLP’s proposals would see the restoration of all strands of the Agreement. Moving on them would build confidence.”

In May, the SDLP proposed 10 administrators should be put in charge of the North’s government departments, with the Assembly scrutinising their work.

The Irish Government would have a say in who was appointed and the administrators would work until full-scale devolution returned.