Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair are considering holding "hothouse" talks with the North's parties in Scotland in the second week in October in an effort to persuade the DUP and Sinn Féin to sign up to a deal to restore devolution, senior political sources have stated.
The talks would start on either the Monday or Tuesday of October 9th or 10th - some days after the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) publishes what is expected to be a positive report that the IRA is continuing to disavow paramilitarism and criminality, sources told The Irish Times.
Mr Ahern and Mr Blair hope that such an IMC report would be the catalyst to convince DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley that he should agree before the governments' deadline of November 24th to enter a power-sharing Northern Executive with Sinn Féin, as well as with the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP.
The governments have hosted similar intensive talks at critical times of the peace process at secluded locations, most notably at Weston Park in Shropshire, England, in 2001. Mr Ahern and Mr Blair believe that bringing politicians out of Northern Ireland for such negotiations frees the politicians from public scrutiny and to a lesser extent from media inspection.
Senior sources said the first week in October was earmarked for talks and officials were seeking a venue in Scotland, although the parties have yet to agree to such a meeting.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin has described as "nonsense" claims that it was instrumental in forcing the postponement of a meeting of dissident republicans scheduled for a venue in Toomebridge, Co Antrim, last night.
Paddy Murray, of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, which is linked to the Real IRA, said yesterday that "Provisional republicans" prevented the organisers of the meeting from obtaining a suitable venue in Toomebridge.
He said the meeting would be rescheduled. The purpose of the aborted meeting, he added, was to try to forge a united front among anti-Belfast Agreement or dissident republicans and to shape a future ideological policy.
Mr Murray, who was criticised by Sinn Féin as well as unionist and SDLP politicians for organising controversial republican parades in Ballymena, Co Antrim, this summer and last summer, said the meeting was designed to debate whether dissident republicans should pursue a "paramilitary or political path" or both, and that members of the Real IRA and Continuity IRA as well as INLA members would have attended the meeting. "It would have allowed left-wing anti-Stormont republicans to come together," he added.
He said the meeting would have confirmed reports that up to 40 IRA members in south Derry had defected from the organisation. Republican sources described these claims as "nonsense". Mr Murray, a convicted IRA bombmaker who is currently on bail on kidnapping charges, said several of those who had reportedly defected from the IRA were planning to attend the meeting of dissidents.
British and Irish security personnel still see the Real IRA and Continuity IRA as posing a significant paramilitary threat. Recent months have seen an increase in dissident paramilitary attacks, including the planting of a bomb at the home of Ulster Unionist peer Lord Ballyedmond in Co Louth and firebomb attacks in Newry.
A Sinn Féin spokesman said Mr Murray and other dissidents "can organise meetings wherever they like - it is nothing to do with us".
