Durkan leads delegation to Downing St

British Prime Minister Tony Blair will today sound out members of the SDLP about their views on the way forward for Northern Ireland’s stalled political process.

SDLP leader Mark Durkan will lead a delegation to Downing Street for the meeting, which will follow separate discussions last week between the Prime Minister and the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin.

Devolution in Northern Ireland has been in deep freeze since the Northern Ireland Assembly and power-sharing executive was suspended in October 2002.

Unionists, particularly the DUP, which is now Northern Ireland’s largest party, are adamant they will not go back into government with Sinn Féin unless the IRA fully disarms and ends all paramilitary and criminal activity.

Their demands have hardened since the failure to reach agreement last year in talks involving the British and Irish governments, the DUP and Sinn Féin.

They have also toughened since the IRA was accused of carrying out the £26.5 million robbery at the Northern Bank last December and the murder of Belfast father of two Robert McCartney outside a city centre bar in January.

A report by the four-member Independence Monitoring Commission published by the two governments yesterday welcomed Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams’s recent appeal to the Provisional IRA to go in a different direction by embracing the democratic alternative and abandoning its campaign of violence.

However, the IMC report also said the Provisionals remained heavily involved in criminal activity such as smuggling of fuel and cigarettes and money laundering.

It also claimed the IRA was still recruiting members and training them in the handling of firearms and explosives, maintaining the operational capability to mount a full-scale terror campaign should it wish to do so.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain last night insisted that the IRA, which is currently debating Mr Adams’s proposal, must come back with a crystal-clear declaration that it is ending all involvement in criminality and paramilitary activity for good.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern also yesterday told the Dáil that while the debate is taking place within the IRA was significant, the quality of its response was the thing that most mattered.

Mr Blair and Mr Ahern face a considerable task in trying to persuade the DUP to go into a power-sharing executive again that would include Sinn Fein.

Mr Paisley’s party, which has been buoyed by its success in the recent General Election, capturing nine Westminster seats, has called on the Government to stop waiting for republicans to adopt the same democratic standard as other parties in Northern Ireland.

It also wants the SDLP to sign up to a voluntary coalition at Stormont, which would freeze Sinn Féin out of ministerial posts because of its inability to fully embrace democratic and peaceful means.

Mr Durkin, however, has insisted his party will not abandon the form of inclusive power-sharing that operated previously under devolution.

The DUP has also insisted that if devolution cannot be restored, the governments should consider a more accountable form of direct rule from Westminster, with the Stormont Assembly or local councillors scrutinising the work of Northern Ireland Office ministers.