Huge differences at Stormont as talks to continue

Hopes fading in bid to reach deal

THE DUP said last night “huge differences” still remain to be resolved before powersharing at Stormont can be restored.

Northern Ireland’s five main political parties met for the first of a series of round-table crisis talks yesterday afternoon in a bid to find a way to end the year-long political stalemate.

Following the meeting, which lasted little over an hour, the DUP’S Simon Hamilton said: “We have huge differences between the parties on a range of key issues and we have been working through those issues.

“We have made some progress on many but there are some big and, in some cases, quite significant gaps.

“We want to get this Assembly back up and running again. We want to do that on the basis of accommodation that is fair, one that allows a sustainable Stormont to be restored.”

Sinn Fein senior negotiator Conor Murphy said: “This process will come to an end in the next short while and we will make a judgment then as to whether a deal is possible or not. We entered in to what we were told and agreed was a short and sharp process to see was an agreement possible.

“We were told this is the last chance and we accept that the talks cannot go on for ever.”

The Government agreed difficult issues remain to be resolved but insisted “progress has been made” and agreement is “achievable.”

However, Ulster Unionist MLA Steve Aiken said there had been “no progress at all”.

He added: “We have a situation where we are being asked to give them even more time and we are not being given the opportunity to discover what the DUP and SF have been working towards.”

Alliance Party leader Naomi Long warned: “There is an opportunity still for a deal to be done, but at the moment I do not think we could have any confidence that a deal could be done if the process continues as it has.”

The SDLP’S Nichola Mallon added: “What we got today was more of the same.”

EMPTY WORDS Talks go on at Stormont however no one seems to be listening