“It isn’t that we’re hugely concerned..”

An odd iol report records Northern Ireland deputy First Minister Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, MP, MLA, repeating what he was told at the North-South Ministerial Council meeting on Monday. There’s an associated Sinn Féin press statement. And this from the iol report

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said his party had called the meeting with Mr Cowen to help keep a focus on political developments in the North during the economic crisis. But he insisted they weren’t overly worried the Republic’s finances had eclipsed the peace process. “It isn’t that we’re hugely concerned, it is just necessary to keep a focus, it has to be business as usual on all of these other matters,” he said.

Well, we can’t have the The Process™ being eclipsed by an economic crisis. Either there or here. And those “other matters” discussed at the meeting? The yet-to-be-requested devolution of policing and justice powers. The “lost in the long grass” Bill of Rights. And an undeliverable, by those involved, Irish Language Act.. There was, apparently, also another North/South ministerial meeting where the Northern Ireland Regional Development Minister Sinn Féin MP for Newry & Armagh, Conor Murphy, was due to complain that Newry wasn’t included in Project Kelvin.. [What about those Irish chickens? – Ed] Cuckoo, cuckoo.. Or is that blasphemy.. Adds The SDLP have a meeting to “take stock” too.

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