Irish PM hopes for Northern Ireland deal 'this week'

LONDON

A deal to restore Northern Ireland’s devolved government could be secured this week, Ireland’s prime minister said after talks in London on Monday.

Enda Kenny said after a meeting with his U.K. counterpart David Cameron that he hoped talks between the territory’s opposing communities, which have been going on for nine weeks, would conclude in a matter of days.

Northern Ireland’s power-sharing administration has effectively been suspended since September over reports that the Irish Republican Army continued to exist as a paramilitary organization.

"I would be hopeful that having had briefings from the minister for foreign affairs in respect of these discussions that they might be able to be concluded this week," Kenny told reporters on Monday afternoon after talks in Downing Street, according to the BBC.

"I am going to travel from here to Belfast to meet with First and Deputy First Minister Robinson and McGuinness and in respect of the document that has been the subject of discussions, I would hope that that might be concluded by the weekend though obviously we will have to wait and see what the outcome will be," he said.

Northern Ireland’s leaders ended decades of often bloody conflict with a landmark 1998 peace agreement that required the territory’s government to be a coalition between unionist parties and Irish republicans.

But that government was brought to the brink of collapse in August this year following the fatal shooting of Kevin McGuigan, a former IRA member.

Unionist parties withdrew almost all of their ministers after a senior chairman in the main Irish republican party Sinn Fein was arrested in connection with the murder, triggering claims that the IRA may have ordered the killing.

A report commissioned by the British government last month found the Provisional IRA army council continued to oversee Sinn Fein’s strategy, but that it was "committed to the peace process and its aim of achieving a united Ireland by political means".

Republicans and unionists have since been in talks to break the impasse over issues including paramilitary activity and cuts to Northern Ireland’s welfare budget.

LONDON

A deal to restore Northern Ireland’s devolved government could be secured this week, Ireland’s prime minister said after talks in London on Monday.

Northern Ireland’s power-sharing administration has effectively been suspended since September over reports that the Irish Republican Army continued to exist as a paramilitary organization.

But that government was brought to the brink of collapse in August this year following the fatal shooting of Kevin McGuigan, a former IRA member.

Republicans and unionists have since been in talks to break the impasse over issues including paramilitary activity and cuts to Northern Ireland’s welfare budget.