Deadline nears for Northern Ireland
Britain will enact legislation to establish a budget for Northern Ireland if a last-minute deal is not reached on Monday to restore a power-sharing government in the province 10 months after it collapsed. Northern Ireland has been without a regional administration since January, which raises the possibility of re-imposing the direct rule of London, which could destabilize a delicate political balance in the British province.
British Northern Ireland secretary James Brokenshire said earlier this month that talks had stalled with the Irish Nationalist Party Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in favor of the rights of Irish-language speakers. The member of the regional assembly of Sinn Fein, Conor Murphy, said that an agreement could be reached, but that the DUP had to make concessions. "An agreement in the political talks should be a deal for everyone in our society and not only for the political leadership of unionism," he said in a statement Monday. "For political institutions to be sustainable, they must be restored on the basis of equality, rights and respect." If an agreement is reached before Monday's deadline, Brokenshire will return to London to begin the necessary processes to form a new Northern Ireland Executive, a spokesman for the British government said last week. However, if a budget is imposed by London, it would be the closest thing that Northern Ireland returns to direct government in a decade. The DUP and Sinn Fein shared power in the previous administration of the decentralized coalition under a system created after a 1998 peace agreement that ended three decades of violence in the province.
British Northern Ireland secretary James Brokenshire said earlier this month that talks had stalled with the Irish Nationalist Party Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in favor of the rights of Irish-language speakers. The member of the regional assembly of Sinn Fein, Conor Murphy, said that an agreement could be reached, but that the DUP had to make concessions. "An agreement in the political talks should be a deal for everyone in our society and not only for the political leadership of unionism," he said in a statement Monday. "For political institutions to be sustainable, they must be restored on the basis of equality, rights and respect." If an agreement is reached before Monday's deadline, Brokenshire will return to London to begin the necessary processes to form a new Northern Ireland Executive, a spokesman for the British government said last week. However, if a budget is imposed by London, it would be the closest thing that Northern Ireland returns to direct government in a decade. The DUP and Sinn Fein shared power in the previous administration of the decentralized coalition under a system created after a 1998 peace agreement that ended three decades of violence in the province.
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