The Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister are to travel to the North tomorrow for talks ahead of next week's deadline for devolution. The British government has said it would be ready to transfer power by Thursday if the negotiations were successful. But there is still no sign of agreement.
Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair will visit Belfast tomorrow afternoon to press for an agreement on a power-sharing executive before next Wednesday's deadline. The two leaders are due to meet at Downing Street tomorrow before attending the funeral of Cardinal Basil Hume. Following the meeting and the funeral, they plan to travel to Belfast, where they will meet all the parties that support the Good Friday Agreement.
In the Dáil this morning, the Taoiseach said every effort would be made to bring about clarity and accountabilty on the arms decommissioning issue. Mr Ahern was responding to the Fine Gael leader, John Bruton, who said such clarity and accountability had been missing from the Good Friday Agreement, and that this had partly led to the current impasse.
Today, the British Government declared that it is ready for a quick transfer of power to the Northern Ireland Assembly if a last ditch deal can be achieved before the June 30 deadline. Commons Leader Margaret Beckett, in exchanges on coming parliamentary business, told MPs that, if an agreement was reached, the Northern Secretary, Mo Mowlam, would be putting forward a devolution order in the House next Thursday, July 1. This would be the first step in switching power to the assembly.
