Mallon gives conditional support to "fail-safe" bill

The North's Deputy First Minister, Seamus Mallon, has said that he backs the so-called "fail-safe" bill to set up a power-sharing executive. However, he said that he opposed that part of it which departed from the Good Friday Agreement. Speaking during the Commons debate on the bill, which is continuing, he said that he sincerely hoped this legislation would never be used. The bill provides for the suspension of the institutions set up under the Good Friday Agreement and a wholesale review if decommissioning does not occur.

The former Tory Prime Minister, John Major, said that it was perverse that Ulster Unionists were being asked to take one more risk for peace on the good faith of the IRA. He added, however, that governments had been forced to deal with unsavoury characters in the past in the quest for peace; he said that after years of work, we are on the verge of a settlement. Earlier, the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, strongly criticised the bill; he described it as flawed and unfair. He said it held out the prospect that Unionists could be pressurised into waiving the demand for IRA disarmament altogether. Opening the Commons debate, the Northern Secretary told MPs that Northern Ireland is being offered its "best chance for a process of complete decommissioning".

MPs will have until about midnight to debate the Northern Ireland Bill. It provides for the suspension of all institutions under the Good Friday Agreement if the IRA fails to disarm. The British government wants the bill to be law by the time the parties in the North nominate their ministers to the executive on Thursday. However, the Ulster Unionists and the Conservatives want changes in the bill which would mean a tighter decommissioning timetable, and, if the IRA does NOT decommission, the automatic expulsion of Sinn Féin from the power-sharing executive and the suspension of the early release programme. David Trimble called it a "hastily concocted scheme" which would "leave open the option of paramilitary violence for the future".

Earlier, following talks with Tony Blair at Downing Street, the SDLP's John Hume was still refusing to give an explicit undertaking that his party would refuse to sit in government with Sinn Fein if the IRA failed to decommission. The Commons debate is continuing, but the Ulster Unionist and Conservative amendments to the proposed legislation are unlikely to be adopted.

Sinn Fein has confirmed it was taking legal advice on the so-called fail-safe legislation, which, it claimed, was outside the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. The party's chief whip in the Assembly, Alex Maskey, accused the British Government of pandering to Unionists. This afternoon the Irish and British governments met the North's two main political parties to discuss the current situation.

At Government Buildings, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs met an Ulster Unionist delegation led by Ken Maginnis, while in Downing Street, Tony Blair held talks with the SDLP. John Hume again declined to give the assurance demanded by Unionists that the SDLP would form a new executive without Sinn Fein if the IRA defaulted on disarmament. The SDLP' S Deputy leader, Seamus Mallon, accused the Unionists and Conservatives of playing party politics.