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1 August 2017 Edition

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Conservative-DUP pact is making Stormont resolution difficult

Tory minister who denounced Good Friday Agreement as ‘mortal stain’ pulls out of meeting Sinn Féin but poses with DUP MPs

• ‘Sinn Féin remains fully committed to making the negotiations work and in getting the Executive back up and running’ - Michelle O’Neill MLA

‘The Tory Government is facilitating the denial of rights because it is in hock to the DUP’ – Declan Kearney MLA

Tory minister who denounced Good Friday Agreement as ‘mortal stain’ pulls out of meeting Sinn Féin but poses with DUP MPs

THE KEY to restoring the power-sharing Executive at Stormont rests with the DUP and the British and Irish governments, Sinn Féin MLA Michelle O’Neill has said.

Any new Executive has to be a rights-based administration that delivers for all citizens and which implements all outstanding agreements, the Sinn Féin leader in the North insisted.

Sinn Féin remains fully committed to making the negotiations work and in getting the Executive back up and running “and delivering for all in society” as per the Good Friday Agreement,” the Mid Ulster MLA said.

But Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney warned that the pact between the Tory Party in power in Westminster and Arlene Foster’s Democratic Unionist Party is making a resolution harder to reach.

The “confidence and supply agreement” between the DUP and the Conservative & Unionist Party pledges DUP MPs’ support for the Tory minority government on key parliamentary votes.

Conservative Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Michael Gove (who came third in last year’s Conservative Party leadership election won by Theresa May) was in Antrim on Saturday 22 July. He pulled out of a prearranged meeting with Sinn Féin and Declan Kearney without any warning. Gove did, however, make time to pose with DUP MPs.

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• DUP MP Ian Paisley meets Conservative & Unionist Party Minister Michael Gove in Antrim

In 2000, the right-wing Brexit enthusiast wrote a pamphlet called Northern Ireland: The Price of Peace in which he attacked the Good Friday Agreement as being based on a “rigged referendum”. The outcome, Michael Gove wrote angrily, was “a mortal stain” and “a humiliation of our army, police and parliament”.

Declan Kearney, one of Sinn Féin’s most senior negotiators, was scathing about the Tory minister’s failure to follow through on July’s scheduled meeting with the party in Antrim.

“This is the latest example of the Tories’ disrespect for voters in the North,” the South Antrim MLA said.

“It is in default of the British Government’s responsibility as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement to be rigorously impartial in the political process.

“The Tory deal with the DUP is making it more difficult to reach a resolution to the current political difficulties in the North.

“The DUP has been emboldened by Tory support for its opposition to the implementation of previous agreements and a rights-based society.”

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• Sinn Féin MLA Michelle O’Neill

The Sinn Féin negotiator said that An Acht Gaeilge, a Bill of Rights, marriage equality and families' access to coroner inquests are basic rights that are protected in England, Scotland, Wales and the rest of Ireland.

“The denial of these rights would not be tolerated elsewhere on these islands but the Tory Government is facilitating the denial of these rights because it is in hock to the DUP.

“The political institutions can be re-established on the basis of partnership, respect and equality but that requires the implementation of previous agreements and an end to the dilution of basic rights at the behest of the DUP. 

“It will also require the British Government to show respect towards the political process and the republican and nationalist electorate.”

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