Ahern and Blair to unveil plans for devolution

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair will unveil their plans today for securing devolved government for the North.

The two premiers are expected to outline the two-phase approach to restoring political institutions, which have been suspended since October 2002, and give Northern politicians an absolute deadline of November 24 to reach a deal.

However, their visit to Armagh will be overshadowed by the shocking murder two days ago of 56-year-old Denis Donaldson, Sinn Féin’s former head of administration at Stormont, who was outed last December as a British spy.

Mr Ahern and Mr Blair had hoped to outline a plan that would enable Northern politicians to overcome past divisions and remove the gun forever from the North’s politics.

However, the murder of Mr Donaldson in an isolated cottage owned by his son-in-law near Glenties, Co Donegal, has deepened scepticism about the chances of a political breakthrough.

Mr Ahern and Mr Blair are expected to confirm that the Assembly at Stormont will be recalled in May and given six weeks to form an inclusive executive.

Sinn Féin and the SDLP have called for the six-week countdown to the formation of an executive to be started in a bid to force unionists to make the choice about whether to go into government with republicans or take the blame for frustrating devolution.

However, the two governments are expected to recommend that new legislation be passed at Westminster if a devolved government cannot be formed, changing Assembly rules and allowing them to park the political process through the difficult summer marching season in the North.

Stormont’s 108 Assembly members, under the two governments’ road map, would be recalled in September, given a programme of work to do at committee level and also the absolute deadline of November 24 to form an executive.

The Irish and British governments would have to put a plan B into operation if no executive is formed after this year, which could mean an expansion of cross-border institutions and co-operation and the winding up of the Assembly.

Mr Ahern and Mr Blair will meet church leaders and business representatives to brief them on their plan during their visit to Armagh.

Mr Ahern has also been lined up to deliver a lecture in memory of the All-Ireland winning Tyrone Gaelic footballer Cormac McAnallen at St Catherine’s College in Armagh, where the player used to teach.

Sinn Féin has in recent days warned the governments not to pander to Ian Paisley’s DUP in their plan and has insisted it will have no part in an Assembly that acts like a mere talking shop.

Party leader Gerry Adams and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness have also been forthright in their condemnation of Denis Donaldson’s murder.

However, despite their attempts to distance mainstream republicans from the shooting and the IRA’s denial of its involvement, DUP figures in particular remain unconvinced.

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York yesterday, DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson warned that, if the provisional IRA was discovered to be responsible for the murder, it would have serious implications for today’s plan from the governments.

He stressed: “It need not impact upon the setting up of an Assembly but it would impact upon the setting up of an executive.”

However, Irish and British officials would have drawn some comfort from Mr Robinson’s appeal to republicans to quicken the pace of their transition from violence and criminality to democratic standards.

The East Belfast MP acknowledged there had been progress by republicans but insisted they needed to go further.

He told the council that the onus was on republicans to ensure criminality and paramilitarism ended and they were fully democratised by the November deadline.

Mr Robinson also said: “If Sinn Féin operate in an exclusively peaceful and democratic mode, unionists will place no impediments in the way of them exercising all the rights every other democratic party enjoys.

“Both unionists parties have consistently stated that they would do business with Sinn Féin if it were entirely free of its paramilitary and criminal associations.

“It is for Sinn Féin to shake off the cords that bind it to terror and criminality.”