Northern Secretary Peter Hain is to press ahead with the formation of an all-party Assembly restoration of devolution committee despite confusion and doubt over whether the DUP will participate.
Mr Hain will announce the creation of the committee by Friday, a Northern Ireland Office (NIO) spokesman said yesterday, notwithstanding warnings yesterday and on Monday by DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley that he would not sit on such a body as it would involve face-to-face engagement with Sinn Féin on UK constitutional matters.
Mr Hain, however, held meetings with the four main parties on Monday evening and according to the NIO spokesman there was agreement "in principle" to establish an all-party Assembly committee to address how obstacles to the restoration of devolution could be overcome.
Conflicting signals emerged from the DUP in recent weeks over its attitude to such a committee. Last Saturday week on BBC Radio Ulster, DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson said he supported the idea of an all-party committee "to look at the issues which are an obstacle to devolution and how they can be removed".
However, in recent days at Stormont Dr Paisley stated and restated that he would not sit down with Sinn Féin on such a committee because he believed it would be tantamount to negotiating directly with Sinn Féin, which he is not prepared to do.
Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness said Dr Paisley's comments were "bizarre", while Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey said the DUP was at "sixes and sevens" over the issue.
The NIO spokesman said Mr Hain and his senior officials currently were attempting to formulate a generally acceptable remit for the committee. Some senior DUP sources suggested that if the committee's purpose was to "identify" problems to be overcome to reinstate the Northern Executive and Assembly rather than "negotiating" how the problems would be solved then the DUP might join the committee with Sinn Féin and the other parties. Despite contact with several DUP politicians in recent days it was not possible to get a definitive response from the party as to whether it would join the all-party committee.
Said a DUP spokesman: "If the [ British] government forms a committee with one person from each party for the purpose of listing items, and attempting to resolve them in the framework of that committee, that is essentially negotiations, and we will not negotiate within that framework."
While to most people this is all peripheral to what should pass for real politics, it will determine whether Sinn Féin and the DUP, through the current Assembly, will engage with each other - which was one of the reasons why the limited Assembly was recalled in the first place by Mr Hain.
If the committee is not formed it will undermine the position of the current Assembly and raise more questions about whether the DUP genuinely wants to reach a political accommodation that would see the restoration of a power-sharing administration at Stormont.
It could also prompt Mr Hain to call the summer recess for the Assembly in advance of the scheduled date towards the end of June when Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are due in the North for negotiations with the parties.
Meanwhile, Mr Hain yesterday initiated a challenge to last week's High Court ruling that he acted unlawfully in appointing two Orangemen to the Parades Commission.
