Eamon Gilmore is to give an interview to the Sunday Politics on the failure of the five parties to agree a deal during the Haass talks.
I have been critical in the past of the lack of involvement of the two governments throughout the entire process but instead of criticising Gilmore for showing upto the party late, I will just be grateful that he showed up at all.
In the interview Gilmore spoke about an urgency that needed to be injected into this process
I don’t think there is a very long period of time within which this can continue on. There is an urgency about getting these issues resolved.
I think if there is an intervention, I think it will be an intervention by both governments together.
We are agreed that this is something that both governments will work together on.
Reading this I am posed to ask the question that surely the time for urgency was intervening two weeks before the talks ended and not two weeks after they had collapsed?
Anyway, we may be back to the days of seeing officials from both governments locked in a room at Castle buildings trying to hammer out a deal. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
UPDATE-UUP Leader Mike Nesbitt says it is ‘unhelpful’ and these issues are not for the Irish government to intervene on.
UPDATE-DUP MP Gregory Campbell has hit out at Gilmore’s comments
David McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs