UK, Ireland offer extra billion pounds for N. Ireland
22 Mar 2007 18:18:04 GMT Source: Reuters
By Adrian Croft LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) - Britain and Ireland offered a further one billion pounds ($1.97 billion) for Northern Ireland on Thursday if rival Catholic and Protestant political parties agree to power-sharing by next Monday. The spending, to be spread over four years, is in addition to a 50 billion pound spending package unveiled by the British government last November. "This is an historic opportunity for the Northern Ireland parties to come together and to have a resumed executive," British finance minister Gordon Brown said after meeting representatives of the Northern Ireland parties in London. Britain says it will dissolve the Northern Ireland assembly unless the parties agree by a March 26 deadline and Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said the offer of extra money was conditional on that happening. The Belfast-based assembly was set up under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland in which 3,600 people were killed. It was suspended in 2002 amid allegations of an Irish Republican Army spy ring. Protestant politician Ian Paisley, leader of the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein, listened to Brown detail the package -- a rare occasion on which they have attended the same meeting. The DUP has voiced concern about whether the parties are ready to govern, according to British officials, but Hain said there would be no half-way house. "Monday is the date by which there is either devolution or dissolution," he said. Britain has also said it will give Dublin a greater say in the running of Northern Ireland should the deadline be missed -- a prospect Paisley and his supporters find unpalatable. However, Hain said there was a precedent for "giving people a space" to craft a programme of government after powers had been devolved from London back to Belfast. Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA which wants a united Ireland, says it is ready to share power. Paisley, whose party made gains in an election this month, says he still has concerns about whether Sinn Fein has severed its ties to violence and fully backs the local police. The one billion pounds offered by Brown includes 200 million from London and 400 million from Dublin for infrastructure building over four years, including a major new roads programme. Another 400 million pounds will enable an incoming Northern Ireland administration to delay the planned introduction of controversial new water charges. The DUP described the package as "modest progress". If all goes to plan, the assembly will convene at Belfast's Stormont parliament building at midday (1200 GMT) on Monday. (Additional reporting by Katherine Baldwin and Paul Hoskins)
