UK and Irish ministers gathered in London yesterday but their meeting ended without major progress made on restoring the Stormont government.
It was the first time the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference had convened since February 2007, when the body met in Dundalk just before the DUP and Sinn Féin confirmed their willingness to share power in Belfast.
Yesterday saw the Irish Tánaiste, or Deputy Prime Minister, Simon Coveney, and Irish justice minister Charlie Flanagan met Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley and Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington.
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The Stormont power-sharing government crashed in January 2017 amid a bitter row between the DUP and Sinn Fein over a botched green energy scheme, which former first minister Arlene Foster had helped to set up.
The impasse later widened to include further issues of contention, such as the status of the Irish language, LGBT rights and how to handle the legacy of the Troubles.
Repeated attempts over the past 18 months to get the devolved administration up and running once again have failed.
Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Party have long been calling for the conference’s re-establishment to inject fresh impetus into the stalled political process in Belfast. But Unionists have been wary of handing too much influence to Dublin and dismissed yesterday’s gathering as a “talking shop”.
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Ahead of yesterday’s meeting former Northern Ireland first minister Lord Trimble accused the Irish government of “meddling” in UK politics by taking part in the talks to get the power-shared government restored.
But speaking after the meeting, Coveney, said the conference was “not in any way an attempt by the Irish government to interfere inappropriately in areas that aren’t our role in the context of the Good Friday Agreement.
“It is very clear that we do not deal with devolved decision-making,” he said. “This is about protecting the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement because there’s been an absence of government in Northern Ireland for 19 months now and that’s impacting communities in Northern Ireland in negative way.”
He said the agenda had included legacy issues, security co-operation, political instability in Northern Ireland and east-west co-operation post Brexit.
“British ministers and Irish ministers simply won’t be meeting in the future in the same way and as frequently as we have done for more than four decades now and so we have instructed senior officials to come up with definitive proposals on how an Irish government and British government in the future can have structured and interactive dialogue at Cabinet level in the same way that France and Germany have, for example.
“This sends a very clear signal that Britain and Ireland are going to remain very close, regardless of the challenges we face.”
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The British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference gives Dublin a consultative role on non-devolved issues affecting Northern Ireland.
Following the meeting, a joint statement issued by the UK and Irish governments reiterated their support for the Good Friday Agreement, their commitment to restoring the devolved government at Stormont and agreed that the conference would meet again in the autumn in a bid to make progress.
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