The Democratic Unionist Party has ruled out any immediate return of the powersharing Executive at Stormont.
In a blow to the British and Irish Governments' hopes that a deal to bring back Stormont is close, the DUP said yesterday "significant areas of difference" remained with Sinn Fein.
"Any notion that an agreement is imminent and that the Assembly will meet next week has no basis in fact given the present state of the talks," the party said in a statement.
The Stormont Government collapsed in January following the resignation of the late Martin McGuinness as Deputy First Minister in a row over the DUP's handling of a botched renewable heat energy scheme.
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said he agreed with the DUP that there were unresolved issues.
Speaking in Dublin, he added: "The reasons they haven't been resolved is because the DUP has to get itself into a psychological space which so far it has resisted and that is the rights which people will have everywhere in these islands, that they can also have in the North."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel