Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I accept that, but that is the position. At least we have moved to the Programme for Government Committee. Dr. Paisley's intention is clear. Perhaps it was not quite clear on the day. I said it was not and in fairness to the good man, he clarified it three hours later. Policing has to be dealt with. Let us be frank: if policing is not resolved, Dr. Paisley and his party will be gone, as probably will many more, and then the resolution in the Act will have to be triggered.

On the other side, this period could be used to enable the Programme for Government Committee to get down to work and it seems determined to do that. Dr. Paisley will be the First Minister. The Deputy First Minister is Mr. Martin McGuinness and they are prepared to work with the agenda of the Programme for Government Committee. They will nominate their other Ministers on 14 March and take up duty before that. Within the arrangements the British Government has designed, much of the work of the parties that will form the Executive, will be recognised as being in transition, with people getting on with their work in the meantime, albeit not holding a full brief, as I would have wished. It is not perfect, but the 24 November deadline successfully triggered the St. Andrews Agreement, worked that into legislation and now, belatedly, the Programme for Government Committee is underway. There are many other hurdles along the way we will just have to overcome. However, the position is clearer than it was all year when we could not get them to meet in any format and did not know whether we would be able to deal with the two issues of policing and power sharing.

It is my estimation that the DUP has answered the question, even if outside rather than inside the Chamber. It is prepared to deal with power sharing. Sinn Féin then has to answer the question, if there can be a resolution of the MI5 issue, which we are working to achieve as best we can, I really believe the sooner that happens the better.

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