MINISTER FOR Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin travelled to Stormont last night to meet Martin McGuinness amid concerns about an 11th-hour DUP/Sinn Féin game of brinkmanship that could undermine the prospects of any early political deal.
Mr Martin met the Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister and also the Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward in Stormont House on the Stormont estate after a day of urgent meetings and speculation about last-minute “wobbles” threatening a deal on policing and justice.
There was also a sense last night that the talks were reaching a make-or-break point with the Ulster Unionist Party, the SDLP and Alliance for the first time receiving some detailed briefings about progress in the negotiations to date.
DUP leader Peter Robinson and the acting First Minister Arlene Foster twice held meetings at Stormont yesterday with these three parties while Sinn Féin met the SDLP.
The DUP and Sinn Féin were still refusing to provide detail about how far the talks were advanced last night. The DUP Minister for Environment Edwin Poots played down notions of glitches in the negotiations that were circulating around Stormont all day yesterday.
He said the parties were seriously engaged in trying to reach agreement on a range of issues including devolution of policing and justice and parading.
“I don’t think there is any particular wobble in the process,” he said.
“Where we are at this point is that we are narrowing down issues, and those issues of concern will have to be resolved. Ultimately we are working our way towards that,” he added.
Nonetheless, a number of Stormont and other sources spoke of issues that were causing concern. These included speculation that Sinn Féin was anxious to “nail down a deal” with the DUP before the other parties were brought into the discussions, as happened yesterday. One source said that Sinn Féin had issued demands that the deal should be concluded by midnight last night.
There were also difficulties over agreeing how contentious parades should be handled in future, according to sources, while agreeing a timeframe for the devolution of justice powers was said to be proving troublesome.
The indications are that in the potential deal with Sinn Féin the DUP is prepared to set a conditional date for transferring justice powers. The actual transfer would be conditional on the DUP, after some form of consultation process, accepting there was public confidence for such a move.
Talks sources said that Sinn Féin had concerns that the DUP was seeking too long a period to establish if this community confidence was present.
Mr Poots said that the DUP was “condition led” in terms of the talks and would only strike an agreement when the conditions were met.