DUP accused of 'cross-border ambush'

Attempts are being made in the Northern Ireland talks to strangle cross-border cooperation under the Good Friday Agreement, it was claimed today.

As Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists produced fresh proposals to break the logjam preventing a comprehensive deal to restore devolution, SDLP negotiators went on the offensive against proposals for more ministerial accountability over joint policy initiatives with the Irish Government.

As the SDLP prepared its own document on the current dispute over ministerial powers in any power-sharing executive, a party source claimed the Democratic Unionists were trying to strangle and veto North/South institutions.

A party source criticised proposals that ministers attending North/South Ministerial Council meetings would have to pass the agenda for meetings with their Irish Government counterparts to cabinet colleagues on the Stormont Executive.

They claimed the proposal that other ministers would have the right to question the agenda would “hold up” the cross-border decision making process.

The party also queried the wisdom of giving other ministers who attended NSMC meetings an equal say, claiming that they would be able to exercise a veto over the work of the cross-border institutions.

Assembly members, they claimed, would also be given a veto on NSMC work under the proposals to give Stormont committees the right to see 14 days in advance of NSMC meetings the agenda.

In particular, the party’s negotiators are concerned the committees would have to give their approval to the agenda in advance before ministers could proceed with the work with their Irish Government counterparts.

A party source said: “All of these measures are designed to slow and strangle the North/South bodies and they’re way beyond what we could accept.

“There were 63 North/South meetings during the last administration and on no occasion did the DUP at any time say there was anything wrong.

“There was never a whimper from them and yet the DUP is trying now to legislate measures which would slow down and strangle the cross-border bodies.”

The SDLP is also pressing for guarantees that the agenda from the last North/South Ministerial Council meeting in July 2002, creating an autism centre in Middleton, would be implemented by the DUP if power sharing returns.

Its negotiating team also want assurances that the North/South Consultative Forum and the Inter-parliamentary Body drawing members from the Stormont Assembly and the Dáil would be set up.

The SDLP source said they also wanted assurances that there would be no attempt to cap the level of cross-border cooperation and implementation bodies and that there would be an expansion of that work as envisaged under the Good Friday Agreement.