Separate meetings today between DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley and British prime minister Tony Blair and chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown could have a crucial bearing on whether a powersharing government will be established by the deadline of Monday week.
Dr Paisley was quite positive about the political prospects after he met Northern Secretary Peter Hain at Stormont Castle yesterday without actually committing himself to enter the office of first and deputy first minister with Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness on Monday week.
On Monday Mr Hain hinted that the controversial water charges, one of the key issues on the doorsteps during the Assembly election campaign, could be abolished if Dr Paisley would agree to the formation of a Northern executive with Sinn Féin, the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP on Monday, March 26th.
Dr Paisley and Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams are to hold separate meetings with Mr Blair but the more significant of tomorrow's London encounters could be Dr Paisley's engagement with Mr Brown, where the DUP leader will attempt to nail down a financial package to prop up the Northern political process. Ahead of his meetings with Mr Blair and Mr Brown, the DUP leader yesterday said, "I think we are making progress. I hope we will succeed in what we are seeking to do. It will rest with the IRA delivering, but I think we are seeing progress and I am encouraged this morning".
Asked would the devolution deadline be met, he said, "I can't really answer that. We are making progress. I have done all I can do and I have gone more than a second way". He acknowledged that his potential commitment to share power had caused political and personal tensions. "I have been severely criticised by various people, some of them are my personal friends - still are - but they don't agree with what I have done. The electorate fortunately have agreed," he said.
Dr Paisley added that the DUP's successes in the Assembly elections, winning 36 of the 108 seats, had strengthened his negotiating hand. "I can afford now to go a bit further because I am confident the people are with me," he said after meeting Mr Hain.
He added, however, that had he been first minister he would have been compelled to resign when Sinn Féin criticised as "political policing" the PSNI arrests of Gerry McGeough and Vincent McAnespie on attempted murder charges during the count for Fermanagh South-Tyrone in Omagh, Co Tyrone, on Thursday. "I could not have sat in one part of the coalition with the other part attacking the police for making an arrest," said the DUP leader.
Dr Paisley nonetheless welcomed comments by senior Sinn Féin politicians such as Mr Adams that republicans should assist the PSNI in their investigation into the two linked murders in west and north Belfast on Monday. "It is not enough but it is part of the way," he said.
