Ahern to speak to congressmen about devolution

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern is to hold talks on the North with influential US congressmen near the border today.

The meeting will focus on the prospect of restoring power-sharing between political parties during 2006.

The Dundalk TD will meet Republican congressmen Jim Walsh of New York and Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania as well as Democrat Brian Higgins from New York.

“The plight of the undocumented Irish in the US will also be discussed,” the minister’s spokesman added.

Mr Walsh iscurrently chairman of the Friends of Ireland on Capitol Hill in Washington and the author of the 1998 Walsh Visa Programme in support of the peace process and aimed at applicants from the North and the six border counties.

The 90-minute meeting takes place in Carlingford, on the shores of Carlingford Lough, which separates Co Louth from Co Down.

Mr Ahern said on January 2 that the Irish and British governments planned to end direct rule and re-establish the Assembly in 2006.

“Local, devolved government is the clear will of the people of Northern Ireland. The parties and the governments have a duty to deliver on that will,” he said.