Ministers reject Trimble criticism of education, health talks in Dublin

The Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, the Minister for Education, Mr Woods, and their Northern counterparts have rejected criticism from Mr David Trimble of their meeting in Dublin yesterday.

The North's First Minister described Irish ministers' meeting with Sinn Fein Stormont ministers as "an electoral stunt" by Sinn Fein and said he was lodging a formal complaint with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern.

Mr Trimble placed a ban on Sinn Fein members attending North/South Ministerial Council meetings last year because of lack of progress on IRA weapons decommissioning.

He said yesterday of the Irish ministers: "They must know that they are being used as an electoral stunt by Sinn Fein, so why are they doing it?" Speaking after the meeting, the Northern Minister for Education, Mr Martin McGuinness said it was "most definitely not" a snub to Mr Trimble.

"We wish David Trimble well. We have worked with David Trimble, with the British government, with the President of the United States of America and with the Taoiseach, to try and bring about a process which will make life better for all of the people who live on this island. So this is not about being offensive to David Trimble. This is about us effectively trying to get on with the work that we have been charged to do by all of the people of this island."

Asked whether yesterday's meeting might undermine the work of the Ministerial Council he said it would not.

"What I think has done more to undermine the work of the North-South Ministerial Council and prevent the council from meeting is the strategy adopted by the Ulster Unionist Party . . . there is nothing more that we would like to see than the North-South Ministerial Council and the different sectors in terms of health and education getting off the ground in a proper fashion. We are dealing with vitally important issues to all the people of this island."

Mr Martin said the meeting represented "ongoing reaffirmation of the contact between both health systems" and the "logic" of looking at health on an "all-Ireland basis".

Mr Woods said education was an issue important to people North and South. He said the unionist people of the North "would want to see us making our preparations and continuing our dialogue".

Reacting to the 40 per cent increase in the number of "punishment" shootings and beatings in Northern Ireland, Mr McGuinness said first that he "hadn't heard any of that".

"But may I say from our perspective what we need to do is to bring about a new beginning to policing. "Our position on punishment beatings and shootings, and mine in particular for over 15 years, has been very, very clear. I am very much against them. I actually think they are counter-productive," he said.

The Northern Minister for Health, Ms Bairbre de Brun, welcomed an opinion poll in yesterday's Belfast Telegraph, indicating a rise in unionist support for the Belfast Agreement.

"It's significant that, for the first time that I can remember since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, David Trimble and his party went out in this election with a several-page pullout in newspapers talking about the agreement delivering for unionists."