DUP challenged to come clean over 'side deals'

The Democratic Unionists were tonight challenged to publish around 100 side deals secured from the British government during talks in 2004 to revive the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey threw down the gauntlet to his rivals after the British government turned down a freedom of information bid by nationalists to release details of over 100 notes of clarification, answers and letters DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson said were given to them during talks involving Sinn Féin, London and Dublin.

The Northern Ireland Office told the nationalist SDLP it was refusing the party’s freedom of information request because of concerns that it could prejudice the UK’s relationship with the Irish Government and also damage the political process.

Sir Reg said: “The 2004 Comprehensive Agreement would have created a review group to consider extra North-South bodies over and above the six bodies and six areas of cooperation in the 1998 Agreement.

“It would also have created a North-South Parliamentary Forum, whereas the 1998 Agreement merely provided for its ‘consideration’; a North-South Civic Forum type arrangement, which is bizarre given that the Civic Forum was bitterly attacked by the DUP who called for its disbandment and a statutory requirement on the First and Deputy First Ministers to nominate Ministers to go to the NSMC.

“This is as much as the public knows of the deal.

“In all of recent talks the UUP has made transparency its key objective. We have published details of talks on our webpage and will continue to do so.

“We did this because we believe that secretive side deals, where nobody but the signatories to those deals knows what is coming out of the woodwork next, are hugely corrosive to the political process.

“The public have a right to know what was agreed and what outworkings of that deal are likely to trickle through the process in the coming months.

“I am calling on the DUP to be upfront, transparent and prove that the days of wink, wink, nudge, nudge politics are at an end.”

Under the 2004 Comprehensive Agreement, there would have been changes to the way the Assembly operated, including how the First and Deputy First Ministers would be elected as well as the entire ministerial team.

However, the deal collapsed after the IRA refused to give in to DUP demands that its disarmament process should be photographed.

Northern Ireland’s 108 Assembly members will gather at Stormont on May 15 to try to set up a power-sharing executive by this summer under the latest British and Irish Government initiative to secure devolution.

Should they fail, they will have at least one more chance to form a government by November 24.

The SDLP announced it would appeal the decision not to publish the side deals because the political process was still coping with the after-effects of the Comprehensive Agreement.

North Antrim Assembly member Sean Farren said: “A shadow Assembly is now being put in place because this was agreed by the DUP with Sinn Féin in the Comprehensive Agreement.

“And while the British government say that they are not wedded to the Comprehensive Agreement, Peter Hain confirmed last week that they are still talking about legislation later this year to implement parts of it before there could be restoration.

“That is why the SDLP wants all the side deals that the DUP has on the Comprehensive Agreement made public – and why we put in the freedom of information request because the public have the right to know what changes there may be to the Good Friday Agreement that they voted for.

“Everybody has the right to see what is on the table.”

The SDLP negotiator challenged Sinn Féin to state whether it had seen the side deals and to publish what it knew.