Parties urged to give careful consideration to proposals

The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, has called on the political parties in Northern Ireland not to engage in "knee-jerk reactions…

The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, has called on the political parties in Northern Ireland not to engage in "knee-jerk reactions" to the proposals which the two governments are to put to them next week.

Speaking after his meeting with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, yesterday morning, Mr Blair said: "I would ask all the parties to consider these proposals carefully, not to engage in knee-jerk reactions to them."

Details of the proposals are to be published on the same day they are presented to the parties.

Mr Blair said that yesterday morning's meeting in his Sedgefield constituency in the north-east of England had been the first time he and Mr Ahern had been able to talk face to face since the package was brokered at talks at Weston Park in Shropshire earlier this month.

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The Prime Minister confirmed that he and the Taoiseach had put the finishing touches to the proposals and said there would be no further negotiations on them.

The political parties would "obviously have to come back to us as soon as possible with their responses".

Mr Blair added: "As we said to you at Weston Park, there is no further negotiation of this. We are quite convinced ourselves as a government that we have the right package of proposals to put to people.

"We believe they are fair and reasonable. There will be difficulties on all sides, but they represent the best way of breaking the remaining impasse in the implementation of the Good Friday agreement."

Yesterday was the last opportunity for the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach to meet before Mr Blair leaves on Sunday for a visit to the Caribbean and South America.

Mr Ahern urged parties on all sides to come together to make the agreement work.

He called for "stability, safety and security" for the people of Northern Ireland and said that the only way this could be achieved was through all the parties involved in the agreement working together to resolve their differences.

Behind-the-scenes work on drafting the proposals had been an "agonising" time in a process which started before Christmas and was now reaching fruition.

"We had got some work to complete. We have done that today, successfully", Mr Ahern said. "We had to put together a package, and it is, we believe, a good package, acceptable to fully implement that part of the agreement and to move on in the process so that we can continue, as the Prime Minister said, to give stability, safety and security."