Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has indicated that outstanding issues of concern to unionism can be satisfactorily resolved including whether the IRA army council will continue in existence.
On Tuesday former DUP MEP Jim Allister cited the continuing existence of the IRA army council as one of his chief reasons for resigning from the party while DUP MPs Rev William McCrea and Gregory Campbell this week also called for the disbandment of the army council.
In the House of Commons on Tuesday Mr McCrea described the prospective deputy first minister Martin McGuinness as a terrorist and a murderer while yesterday in the House he asked British prime minister Tony Blair did he accept that a "commitment to exclusively peaceful means must of necessity include the dismantling of all terrorist structures including the IRA army council?"
"The Independent Monitoring Commission are the body that is charged with deciding whether that commitment to exclusively peaceful and non-violent means is being adhered to or not," Mr Blair replied.
"As you will know they have a further report coming in the next few weeks, but they have made their statement that the IRA indeed is abiding by that principle and I think they are the people best placed to make that judgment," he added.
In interviews Mr Adams chose to give to UTV, RTÉ and the BBC yesterday he partially addressed this matter.
Asked would the army council matter and other issues of concern to unionists be dealt with, he said there were many challenges to be faced but that outstanding issues would be resolved.
"Is this going to work? Yes. Will these issues be dealt with to the satisfaction even of a Jim Allister? Yes, I believe they will.
"The IRA in fairness will continue to be a catalyst for the peace process, so I think all these issues can be dealt with," he added. But when he was asked could the army council be disbanded by May 8th, when devolution is due to resume, he characterised the question as "stupid".
When it was put to him that Mr Allister and some DUP members had serious concerns about the army council, he replied, "Then let them talk to whoever they want to talk to . . . Jim Allister is out of it. Jim Allister has left, he is yesterday's news."
Mr Adams said he believed powersharing would work. "There may be a battle a day in terms of a lot of trying to get the system tailored to meet the needs of the people. I don't think there need necessarily be a battle a day between us and the DUP on social and economic issues."
Mr Adams said he had raised social issues such as suicide, youth alcohol abuse, drug problems and poverty with Dr Paisley at Monday's groundbreaking meeting at Stormont and that the DUP leader had responded that the DUP and Sinn Féin were two parties that had working class support. He said the choreography around Monday, the seating arrangements, the pictures and the broadcasts were crucial to impressing on the public that this opportunity could succeed. "This had to be an event that you did not need to interpret, that did not need parsed, that the ordinary citizen can look at the television screen and know that something magical, something clear, something definitive had happened."
UTV also reported yesterday that the DUP intends "rotating" its ministers in the Northern executive from May 8th so that party MPs and Assembly members would get opportunities to run departments.
This could be done through a minister running a department for two years and then handing over to a colleague for the remaining two years of the life of this Assembly.
