Stormont’s challenges can be overcome, insists Martin McGuinness

FIRST MINISTER Peter Robinson should have talked to joint First Minister Martin McGuinness rather than unilaterally announce in a daily newspaper that the power-sharing arrangements in the North “are no longer fit for purpose” because Sinn Féin is resisting the Tory-led welfare cuts.

The Democratic Unionist Party leader also said that new elections could be an option.

Such “megaphone or media-based negotiations” by the DUP leader are counter-productive, Martin McGuinness said, insisting:

“We can overcome the difficult challenges facing the political process.

“The most productive way to do business and get an agreement is through talking to the people you disagree with.

“We all have a responsibility to work together but in the first place the First Minister should talk to me and to his Executive colleagues.

“We have overcome enormous challenges in the past by treating each other with a degree of respect.”

He said that with the support and engagement of the Irish and British governments and the US administration, “I’m confident we can find a resolution to our current difficulties.”

Martin McGuinness was responding an article written exclusively for Tuesday’s Belfast Telegraph which the paper’s Liam Clarke described as “a dramatic intervention on the future of Stormont” if there is no political agreement on welfare cuts.

Peter Robinson threatened in his article that an election would be the only alternative if agreement cannot be reached quickly.

The DUP leader also called for “a second take” of the St Andrews Agreement that devolved powers to the Executive and Assembly in the Six Counties.