Progress Praised, Though Executive Still Stalled

As the Irish President, Mary McAleese, took to a conference platform to insist that Northern Ireland has taken "huge steps" towards delivering a peaceful and just society, Sinn Fein has used the same event - a conference in to mark the Civil Rights campaign of the 1960s - to launch a fresh verbal attack on the DUP.

Speaking at the weekend event in Londonderry, NI Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said elements of the DUP are harking back to the days of unionist rule, hoping to undermine Northern Ireland's power-sharing government.

He called on DUP leader and NI First Minister Peter Robinson to agree a deal to secure the government and warned that failure to 'share power' would see unionists robbed of any political control.

Mr McGuinness told the international conference in Londonderry marking the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights campaign that some unionists still believed in 'no surrender and not an inch'.

He said that still exists in some elements of political unionism today, and especially within the DUP.

"The fact is that there are still those within the DUP who do not agree with power sharing as a concept or as a matter of political practice.

"They do not accept that the days of unionist majority rule are gone and gone forever."

"They believe that by stalling and delaying they can hollow out the Good Friday and St Andrews Agreements. And that is what is at the heart of the current crisis."

The DUP and Sinn Fein remain deeply divided over a range of issues including the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Assembly.

The dispute has seen Sinn Fein block meetings of the NI Executive since June.

See: Executive Stress Not Relieved