SF 'could back plans for block vote'

Sinn Féin could back plans for the Northern Ireland Assembly to vote in future for the North’s entire power-sharing government, a senior negotiator signalled today.

In a significant move in the run-up to the Irish and British government proposals to revive power sharing, Sinn Féin chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said his party could live with the alternative to the current system of joint electing First and Deputy First Ministers.

However the Foyle Assembly member said he believed the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists could find the proposal hard to stomach.

“We have been interested by some responses to the DUP’s argument about the joint election of First and Deputy First Ministers and the proposal that the entire executive be elected in a block vote instead,” said Mr McLaughlin.

“In some ways I think that alternative could be an even worse position for the DUP because instead of having to vote for one Sinn Féin minister, they would be voting for three.

“It could be a hard proposal for them to sell but I have to say, if this is in the package being put forward by the British and Irish Governments, it’s a proposal that is not going to cause Sinn Féin too much heartache.”

Mr McLaughlin was commenting as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern were today due to discuss plans to revive power sharing with unionists and nationalists at crucial peace process meetings in London and Dublin.

There was speculation Mr Blair may present the two governments’ proposals to the DUP at a meeting in Downing Street and Mr Ahern give them to Sinn Féin at a meeting in Government Buildings in Dublin.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern was also due to meet Mark Durkan’s nationalist SDLP.

Irish and British officials have been working on a package of proposals to break the political deadlock at Stormont covering power sharing, disarmament, the future of paramilitaries and demilitarisation.

However they will have to overcome significant gaps between Mr Paisley’s DUP and nationalist parties on power sharing to succeed.

The DUP, in particular, has been pressing for an end to the joint election of First and Deputy First Ministers and for power-sharing ministers to be made more accountable to their cabinet colleagues and the Assembly as a whole.

Mr McLaughlin again warned Sinn Féin would oppose any proposal which gave the DUP a veto over the work of other parties’ ministers in a future executive or diluted the power and status of the First and Deputy First Ministers.

The Sinn Féin chairman also dismissed reports that the IRA was considering allowing Catholic and Protestant clergymen to witness future disarmament acts.

“At the end of the day whatever scheme emerged will be agreed by General John de Chastelain (the head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning) and the IRA’s interlocutor,” he said.

“Political parties will have no input into that.

“The aspect of whether or not there will be a public dimension to that will be discussed with the international body.

“I would urge people not to deal with this unhelpful speculation as fact because there is a danger that they can be spun down the line as broken pledges.”