Unionists snub North-South ministerial meeting

Unionists stayed away from a meeting of ministers from the North and Republic of Ireland today in a further escalation of the tensions hitting the Stormont government.

Yesterday Sinn Féin blocked a Northern Ireland Cabinet meeting in protest at the failure of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to agree a date for the devolution of policing and justice powers.

DUP leader Peter Robinson said the tactic made it impossible to approve today’s cross-border event and so the DUP minister scheduled to attend did not turn up.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 included an all-Ireland political dimension on the demand of nationalists, but now that architecture has begun to fall victim to the growing crisis.

Today’s North-South agriculture sectoral meeting in Co Cavan was to involve two ministers from the Republic of Ireland and two from Northern Ireland, but DUP Environment Minister Sammy Wilson did not attend.

Stormont Agriculture Minister, Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew, went ahead with the meeting, even though it was not held under the auspices of the North-South Ministerial Council.

She held discussions with the Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith and Eamon O Cuiv, the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

But SDLP deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell said Sinn Féin was involved in a private war with the DUP that was damaging the interests of nationalists.

“The Sinn Féin charge sheet gets longer by the day,” he said.

“The sell-out of nationalist interests took shape at St Andrews when Gerry Adams gave the DUP an absolute veto on the devolution of policing and justice. Now Gerry’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

A demand by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week for politicians to agree a date for the devolution of policing powers was rejected by the DUP.

The 2006 St Andrew’s deal set May this year as a target date for the transfer of the powers, but the DUP has said the time is not yet right.

Yesterday Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, said the DUP was in default of the St Andrew’s deal.