Business assured co-operation will not be delayed

The "non-availability" of the shadow North-South council will not be allowed to hold up preparations for cross-Border co-operation, the Taoiseach has said.

Mr Ahern told business executives from both sides of the Border that, pending the council's formation, "we can and we should find other frameworks for taking forward the task of identifying and agreeing the areas for co-operation".

The reason the Belfast Agreement had provided for a shadow executive and shadow NorthSouth council was that these bodies could get on with preparatory work while the legislation the pact required was put in place.

"That is the substance and that is what we must now do in regard to the Strand Two provisions," he said. Mr Ahern was addressing the opening of the IBEC-CBI joint business council meeting in Dublin yesterday.

Acknowledging that the October 31st deadline for agreement on North-South co-operation would not be reached "in the precise manner laid down in the agreement", he wanted to relay "a message of reassurance".

"Firstly, it is important to emphasise what was to have been agreed by Saturday. It was not, as many have inaccurately stated, the formation of North-South bodies. No, the shadow council was to identify and agree the areas . . . for taking forward the types of co-operation set out in Strand Two of the agreement.

"It was always foreseen that it would take some further months . . . to enact the legislation and to take the other preparatory steps necessary for the North-South implementation bodies to be able to operate."

In the absence of the North-South council, he still expected "good sense will prevail and that the work will simply be taken forward in a different manner. You can see that there is a lot of purposeful activity going on this week and it is not to be excluded that we could yet achieve, by October 31st, the essence of what we were to have done by that date".

The process would mean "serious co-operation in serious areas of the economy, not footling co-operation in marginal areas", the Taoiseach warned. Facing negotiations "where the position of the Northern Ireland side has yet to be determined you will not expect me to turn all my cards face up on the table here today". But he added: "I can say that the areas set out in the [IBEC-CBI] joint council's paper . . . are very much the areas we have been examining."