Stormont talks to enter 'intensive period' at Leadership level

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Secretary of State Karen Bradley has recommended that the Northern Ireland talks process moves into a "very intensive period" at leadership level.

Speaking outside Stormont, she said: "I want to thank the parties for their positive engagement and their determination to make a success of these talks.

"The Taoiseach and Prime Minister were always intending to review progress at the end of the month and we will be reporting to the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach with reports from the leads of the working groups and my assessment of the situation we have today.

"I'll be recommending that we now move into a very intensive period of talks at leadership level to make sure that we can address the issues that remain.

"I am positive that there is the right attitude and there is the right will there, but I think it would be wrong for me to do anything other than to be clear that there are still significant challenges that still remain.

"We will continue to work to deliver what the people of Northern Ireland rightly want and deserve and need, which is government in Stormont."

Tanaiste Simon Coveney said there was "momentum" in the talks process.

"Certainly my recommendation to the Taoiseach will be that we should now intensify the discussions, make them much more direct and much more political for the next couple of weeks in an effort to try to turn what has been a good process into a series of decisions that can get a basis for the re-establishment of an executive - that's ultimately what we are about," he said outside Stormont House.

"I think all the parties are up for that and I think certainly that was the indication today and there was some good blunt discussion, I think, around that because there needs to be an appetite here within the parties to make this work, because it's going to involve compromise and it's going to involve accommodation with each other."

Mr Coveney said there were "awkward issues" to resolve. "But they are not insurmountable," he added.

"And when you consider some of the other issues that Northern Ireland faces and some of the decisions that are being taken that will impact directly on Northern Ireland in the autumn I think people need to get into perspective why it's important that we have devolved institutions and Northern Ireland making decisions for itself as we move through the summer into a very unpredictable political period for British and Irish politics.

"This is important and I think the stakes are high."

Mr Coveney acknowledged that events at Westminster and the looming departure of Prime Minister Theresa May could impact on the process.
"They could but I think certainly the response from the parties we are hearing today is they want to use this window that is available," he said.

"We are not likely to have a new Conservative Party leader and new prime minister probably until the end of July. We are looking to get this process done in June.

"So this is a window that parties can either choose to take or not.

"There's always an excuse if people want to find one whether it's marching season, whether it's conference season, whether it's changing politics either in Dublin or London but I think there is window in June and we have managed to bring this process through the European election and in the aftermath of local elections without the parties falling out in the process and I think we now have a space of a few weeks to try to see whether parties can accommodate each other, because that's ultimately what this is about. We can't have winners and losers in this process."