Taoiseach Brian Cowen and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are at Hillsborough Castle tonight trying to prevent Northern Ireland’s fragile power sharing administration from imploding.
The two men arrived at about 5pm for talks that are expected to go long into the night as they attempt to broker a deal between Sinn Féin and the DUP on the transfer of policing and justice powers from London to Belfast.
It has since been confirmed that the two government leaders will remain in Northern Ireland overnight.
'We believe that the problems that exist in devolving policing and justice are soluble problems,' Mr Brown said after meeting Mr Cowen at Downing Street earlier.
'We believe it is right for Northern Ireland to move forward in this way and we believe that together we can assist in the completion of these talks.'
A crunch meeting between Northern Ireland's First Minister, DUP leader Peter Robinson, and Deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, took place at midday at Parliament Buildings.
Neither side made an immediate comment afterwards.
It is thought both parties then briefed Mr Cowen and My Brown to discuss the outcome of the meeting.
Before the meeting, Mr McGuinness urged the DUP to 'make peace' with his party to resolve the issues blocking agreement on the devolution of policing and justice powers.
Mr McGuinness said he had done all he could to make the power-sharing executive work and also accused the DUP of not honouring the St Andrew's agreement.
Several sessions of talks between Sinn Féin and the DUP over the past two weeks proved fruitless.
They could not find compromises on issues such as the transfer of justice and policing powers and how to handle contentious parades.
Sinn Féin's Ard Comhairle met in Dublin on Saturday and gave Martin McGuinness a mandate to make one final effort at negotiations.
Sinn Féin has argued that since Ian Paisley stepped down as DUP leader 20 months ago, his party has pulled back from power-sharing arrangements.
