Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I will endeavour to answer all the Deputy's questions. The main slippage has taken place in respect of the programme for government committee. The intention, when we broke up on 13 October in St. Andrews in Scotland, was that the programme for government meeting would be held on the following Tuesday. Regrettably, that did not take place. I was concerned about that; it was unhelpful to the process. I will not enter into the blame game about it but it lost valuable weeks. The programme for government committee met on Monday. I always try to keep this constructive so at least that was a comprehensive and good meeting. It was well attended by senior members on both sides.

The agreement is that the committee will meet weekly in future. I hope that process continues. However, it did create difficulties and we lost valuable time from what was a clear understanding in St. Andrews up to Monday's meeting. Monday's meeting was important and useful. The committee dealt with substantive issues. It pledged it would meet on a weekly basis to deal with policy and preparation issues with the intention that when the Executive is up and running at the end of March the parties would be able to move fully into positions.

It was always intended that on 14 March the parties would put forward the names of the Ministers who would serve in the Executive. They will take up their positions and sign the pledge on 26 March. There have been considerable issues surrounding the pledge of office and the circumstances for taking it. The two central issues are whether the DUP will engage in power sharing and whether Sinn Féin will deal comprehensively with policing. The pledge will deal with both issues when it reaches that stage.

The pledge of office set out in Schedule 4 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 was amended by the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill in the House of Commons last night by the insertion after paragraph (c) of the following:

"(ca) to promote the interests of the whole community represented in the Northern Ireland Assembly towards the goal of a shared future;

(cb) to participate fully in the Executive Committee, the North-South Ministerial Council and the British-Irish Council;

(cc) to observe the joint nature of the offices of First Minister and deputy First Minister;

(cd) to uphold the rule of law based as it is on the fundamental principles of fairness, impartiality and democratic accountability, including support for policing and the courts as set out in paragraph 6 of the St Andrews Agreement;".

The pledge deals comprehensively with both issues. Obviously, until those issues are addressed the agreement of the parties on how they will handle that on Friday is one I support. We will not get any further on that until a pledge is signed and embraces both issues, that is, power-sharing and support for policing.

See this speech in context