Murphy rules out early Assembly elections

Northern Ireland Secretary Mr Paul Murphy has dismissed a call from the Democratic Unionist Party for early Assembly elections.

The Rev Ian Paisley has demanded the elections planned for next year be brought forward in the light of the suspension of the Northern Ireland Executive.

However, Mr Murphy said this morning he did not believe fresh elections would bring stability to the political process in the North.

"I think that elections at this time wouldn't be the right thing, because I think it's for the political parties and the two Governments to resolve the issues in front of us first," he said. "I'm not at all convinced that elections in the next couple of weeks would help that at all," he said.

Mr Murphy said the decision not to hold early elections was not prompted by a fear of huge electoral gains by the DUP and Sinn Féin that would polarise the process. "Who knows what would happen?" he said.

He said he hoped the peace process could be restarted at the talks the Irish and British governments plan next week. They will be co-chaired by Mr Murphy and the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen.

Invitations were issued to all political parties in the North to attend the talks at Parliament Buildings, Stormont.

Although the DUP have indicated they will not be at the talks, the Northern Secretary said he believed they still had a valuable part to play.

"I think the DUP have been very committed to the concept of devolution," he said. "I suspect they'll speak to other parties, but in a different context. I can't make parties go to the round table talks next week".