The Taoiseach and British prime minister have agreed to try to reduce the obstacles to a political deal in the North before Christmas in advance of a push to restore powersharing institutions next year, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent, at Downing Street
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern and Northern Secretary Peter Hain will meet this day week to plan meetings with the North's political parties. They will try to resolve disagreements on policing, the parades commission, restorative justice and other issues.
To add impetus to their efforts, the two governments may on the same day publish the latest report from the Independent Monitoring Commission, which is expected to say the IRA has been observing its commitment in the July 28th statement to end all activity. The governments will receive the report next Friday and the Cabinet will discuss it on Tuesday.
Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair discussed their plans for 45 minutes at Downing Street yesterday. It was their first meeting since the decommissioning body reported that the IRA had put its weapons beyond use. They are understood to have discussed DUP demands for the police board to be reconstituted to give them more representation; DUP demands for the Parades Commission to be reconstituted and its terms of reference changed; Sinn Féin demands for "restorative justice" projects; and what the governments' response will be to the monitoring commission's initial report.
Mr Ahern said Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern and Northern Secretary Peter Hain will meet next week and will "start talking with the parties and working with them to make as much progress as possible on these issues".
Mr Blair said the two governments were "looking to create the circumstances in which we can get devolved government back to Northern Ireland". What had happened in September, when the IRA put its weapons beyond use, was "very significant".
Strategists in both governments and in the North's other political parties are sceptical about whether the DUP and Sinn Féin are committed to agreeing to restore power-sharing by Easter, as envisaged by the governments. However, by clearing as many issues as possible out of the way before Christmas, the governments hope to be able to push for a powersharing deal should the opportunity arise after the Independent Monitoring Commission's second report in January.
On decommissioning, Mr Blair said: "It was a genuinely significant change in the politics of Northern Ireland and the whole of the island of Ireland." He also placed last week's police raids in Manchester, reportedly designed to seize IRA property assets, in the context of building a belief in the North that the situation had been transformed. "What people in Northern Ireland want to see is that there isn't any tolerance for that kind of activity.
"There isn't any no-go area, any tolerance, there is no ambiguity about what is right and what is wrong. Anybody who supports criminal activity from whatever part of the spectrum, whatever organisation they come from, our agencies are going to get after them." Mr Ahern added: "The fact that there is a clampdown on criminality, on money laundering, or the sales of any goods, illicit goods or products or anything . . . The citizens on the island of Ireland and everywhere else will see that that is a good thing."