Durkan questions DUP’s commitment to power-sharing

SDLP leader Mark Durkan has questioned the DUP's commitment to sharing power with nationalists and republicans in the North.

The DUP has insisted that it is willing to enter power-sharing arrangements if the IRA decommissions and ends all paramilitary activity.

However, Mr Durkan said this did not tally with the party's record in local government.

"Across the North, the picture is the same," he said.

"In Peter Robinson's Castlereagh, in the Paisley stronghold of Ballymena, in Jeffrey Donaldson's Lisburn, in Gregory Campbell's Coleraine - wherever the DUP have the upper hand in local government, nationalists are excluded.

"Whenever the DUP have power, they abuse it."

Mr Durkan said the SDLP would call the DUP's bluff on the matter by tabling council motions in Castlereagh, Ballymena, Lisburn and Coleraine urging councillors to support power-sharing at local level.