Cowen To Meet Northern Ireland Leaders For Talks

The Irish Taoiseach is to meet the North's First Minister, Peter Robinson, and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in separate meetings in Dublin on Friday.

Brian Cowen will discuss the current impasse between the two leading parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP, over the devolution of policing and justice powers.

The DUP leader Mr Robinson will be accompanied by his deputy Nigel Dodds, and said he believed the talks would be wide-ranging.

Sinn Féin has locked out meetings of the Executive until it has commitments on the devolvment of policing and justice powers, the Irish language, education and future use of the Maze prison site.

The DUP is refusing to make specific commitments on these issues.

On Wednesday it was reported that Sinn Fein had out voted the DUP at Stormont in an important committee meeting on the policing and justice devolution.

With two unionists absent for the vote, the committee agreed four votes to three to set a five-week deadline for drawing up proposals on the devolution of policing and justice powers.

Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey succeeded in having the Assembly and Executive Review Committee pass a resolution on the timeframe by four votes to three, with unionists on the committee objecting to the timetable.

Mr Maskey, his party's policing spokesman, said he was keen to avoid any delay on the Committee's report on devolving the powers.

He had originally proposed a three-week timeframe, but agreed to alter it to accommodate the Halloween recess.

See: Stormont Policing Committee Sets Date

(DW)