SDLP proposes benchmarks for new NI initiative

British and Irish government plans for a political initiative for Northern Ireland during 2006 must include the scrapping of a Bill dealing with murders during the Troubles, officials were told today.

As Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his foreign minister Dermot Ahern met to discuss how they would revive power sharing at Stormont along with the British government, nationalist SDLP Assembly member Alex Attwood set out five benchmarks by which any plan would be judged.