Hopes rose today of a breakthrough over the delayed transfer of policing and justice powers which is threatening the future of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive.
First Minister Peter Robinson is under mounting pressure to reach an agreement with the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness by the middle of next month at the latest.
The Irish and British governments fear the Stormont Assembly could collapse unless Mr Robinson’s Democratic Unionist Party reaches a deal with Sinn Féin.
Relations between the men are strained because of the tensions over the hold-up in transferring the powers from London.
Today Mr Robinson, also the DUP leader made it clear he did not want a return to direct rule from Westminster.
He said: “I do not pretend that the government we have at Stormont is perfect: no government is, but it is infinitely more preferable to the only alternative: direct rule, with no say for local people in how we are governed.
“I have no desire to see the country I love relegated to the status of a colony and presided over by a series of here today-gone tomorrow direct rulers, Tory or Labour.”
Mr Robinson said the shooting dead by dissident republicans earlier this year of two soldiers outside Massereene Barracks, in County Antrim, and a police officer in Craigavon, County Armagh, showed there were still people who wanted to drag Northern Ireland back to mayhem and destroy devolution.
In a Christmas message, the DUP leader said: “The universal reaction of all right-thinking people in our community, including some who had previously refused to condemn such barbarity, showed us that such wreckers will not succeed.”
PA