ANALYSIS:Cowen and Brown have come up with proposals that just could prevent the crash of the Northern Executive
THERE WAS a lot happening at Hillsborough Castle late last night. Taoiseach Brian Cowen and British prime minister Gordon Brown appeared to be shaping up to propose to the parties a deal that could and perhaps should be cut.
Although that wasn’t apparent from what Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin and Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward delivered to us outside the castle shortly before 6pm in time for the various evening news TV programmes.
It was a masterful exercise in 40 ways to say nothing, where the words “constructive” and “positive” and “engagement” featured repeatedly, but where there was a total absence of detail.
But something was happening inside the castle, where Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams, the UUP, SDLP and Alliance leaders and all their senior politicians and officials were involved in very serious negotiation.
When did he expect to lose all his “house guests”, Mr Woodward was asked, but he couldn’t tell us. Everyone was engaged in “a lot of hard work”, he said, and while it wasn’t much in terms of detail it seemed to be true.
Real issues were being crunched, primarily policing and justice and parading but also issues such as the Irish language and tackling sectarianism. The parties discussed all these ideas at a plenary hosted by Cowen and Brown at 7pm.
We were told that someone had to find a razor for the Taoiseach who hadn’t been expecting to be overnighting in Hillsborough with the British prime minister on Monday. And last night he was still at the castle.
The latest news was that some of their officials had gone to a nearby Marks Spencer at Sprucefield to get clean shirts and underwear for the leaders.
Cowen and Brown were allowed separate bedrooms for their brief sleep but for their waking moments they shared one room, where throughout most of yesterday they met all the parties, with the main determined focus naturally on trying to persuade Adams/McGuinness and
Robinson and his deputy Nigel Dodds to knock out a workable deal.
They presented a strong, united front, we were told, making the point that “each party would get something but they wouldn’t get all they wanted”.
For weeks and months now Sinn Féin has been demanding a date for transferring policing and justice.
How about early May, Adams and McGuinness were asked by the two leaders, said well-placed sources. “The date has to be before the British general election,” said a senior Sinn Féin source.
Brown has yet to call a date for the Westminster poll, but for weeks now the informed speculation is that it will be in May.
So maybe that could work. Throughout yesterday papers were exchanged between the leaders and the parties, with government officials doing most of the work.
There was talk of a review that could reshape how the issue of contentious parades is addressed that, sources said, “would have a strong cross-community remit and would be acceptable to Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson”.
That was some challenge but again the word from Hillsborough late last night was that progress was being made and real, constructive ideas were being developed.
“It’s all work in progress,” said Martin and Woodward. They appeared in reasonably positive frame of mind at 9.10pm last night when they came out again to tell us progress was made at the round-table talks hosted by Cowen and Brown.
From the photographs in which Robinson, McGuinness and Adams appeared to be joking with each other there appeared to be some truth to this assertion.
For years now Sinn Féin has been pushing for an Irish language act for Northern Ireland.
Word last night was that an act was not on the immediate horizon but that there could be a “strategy” to promote the language together with language funding. Ulster-Scots would also be in the language mix to promote “parity of esteem”.
At last Cowen and Brown, after going through the ritual of last-ditch talks, were coming up with proposals that just could prevent the crash of the Northern Executive and Assembly.
The Taoiseach and prime minister appeared anxious to address a broad programme so that all the parties might feel they were part of the engagement, although in truth all the high-powered energy and effort is dedicated to persuading the DUP and Sinn Féin to press ahead with full-blown devolution.
It was getting close to decision time for the DUP and Sinn Féin principals.