TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen and British prime minister Gordon Brown will hold further telephone discussions over the weekend after talks between Sinn Féin and the DUP on the transfer of justice powers ended without agreement.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams accused unionists of failing to meet their commitments and of playing “the Orange card”.
However DUP leader Peter Robinson called for republicans to “calm down” and insisted talks to resolve outstanding matters including parading should continue next week at Stormont.
Mr Cowen and Mr Brown spoke yesterday while the governments spoke with the parties.
Last night Sinn Féin sources insisted the door to talks on justice remained open. But the party refused to rule out the possibility that Martin McGuinness could step down as Deputy First Minister thus allowing just seven days to resolve issues between the leading parties in the Executive before elections would have to be called.
In a detailed statement on his blog, Mr Adams illustrated his party’s frustration and suggested the DUP had acted in bad faith.
“There has been no product thus far as a result of the negotiations. The ardchomhairle meets [today] and will hear a report on all this. The time has long passed for the transfer of powers on policing and justice. There can be no preconditions to that. Not on the Parades Commission; not on marches; not on equality and partnership government.”
But Mr Robinson hit back saying negotiations do not end “until matters are resolved”. He said anyone who “steps away from the table at this stage endangers the whole process”.
He said republicans “have a unionist leader who wants to do business”.
He added: “I have the support of my party in resolving the outstanding issues. I’ll still be at the table . . . I hope that we will get down the business on Monday.”
Mr Adams’s blog was posted after a series of meetings at Stormont between Martin McGuinness and other parties and talks involving US special envoy Declan Kelly.
It is understood the US has underscored the importance of a deal and the dangers of a collapse of the Stormont institutions.
The talks difficulties continued against a backdrop of speculation about moves towards unionist unity involving the Ulster Unionists, DUP and the Conservatives.
Mr Robinson said last night it was his “lifetime ambition” to have unionist unity. He said he looked to the weeks and months ahead, indicating a possibility that electoral arrangements could be in place by the next Westminster election scheduled to take place by June.
He also accepted an Assembly election could be called to coincide with a general election.
Conservative spokesman on Northern Ireland Owen Paterson played down talk of a grand unionist coalition, saying this was “for the future” and denying the possibility of a hung parliament at Westminster was a motivation.
Speaking at Stormont he said he stood by Conservative and Ulster Unionist plans to run candidates in each of Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies regardless of the DUP.
The SDLP said it expected efforts to solve the problems to commence next week at Stormont and called for multi-party talks given the failure of the SF-DUP discussions. Alliance party leader David Ford told the DUP and republicans they had to secure a deal for the benefit of all.
“A swift deal is essential . . . Any deal must end the state of paralysis the Executive is currently in,” he said last night.