Sinn Féin leadership is facing pressure from within its own ranks to retaliate over sanctions against its ministers in the Northern Ireland executive, Gerry Adams claimed tonight.
The party leader hinted after a meeting with Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon that he had faced calls for his party to withdraw from the executive in protest at the Ulster Unionist ban on Education Minister Martin McGuinness and Health Minister Bairbre de Brun from attending cross-border body meetings with the republic’s Government.
"There have been a number of propositions put to me about taking radical action," the West Belfast MP indicated.
"This isn't just about stopping these two particular ministers from performing their functions although that is bad enough.
"It isn't only about preventing the Health Minister from engaging in issues which could actually save people's lives or the Education Minister being able to put together policies that could actually benefit our young people.
"It also prevents the Deputy First Minister from doing his job. It prevents the Taoiseach from doing his job. It prevents, through the British Irish council, the British Prime Minister from doing his job.
"So in all of this there is a fracture that is not tenable. Radical action would involve the party considering - and we have had propositions put to us which I have knocked firmly back in some way a withdrawal, in some way trying to tell the governments you have a responsibility to act as guarantors."
Mr Adams said it was his view that it would be counterproductive to take such retaliatory action and he had successfully persuaded his colleagues to resist the idea.
However, his job was becoming more difficult as the ban imposed by Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble remained.
Ulster Unionists took the action against Sinn Féin ministers last year in a bid to force the IRA to honour its commitment to put its weapons beyond use.
The ban has been maintained despite a Belfast High Court ruling in January that it was illegal.
Mr Trimble, who is appealing the ruling, has argued that the judgment nevertheless permitted him to withhold the nominations of Sinn Féin ministers to North-South Ministerial Council meetings if he believed they were unsuitable to represent the Stormont power-sharing executive.
Mr Adams, who was joined at the meeting with the Deputy First Minister by Martin McGuinness, said he had also requested a meeting with Mr Trimble.
Mr Mallon criticised the sanctions against Sinn Féin, repeating his demand that ministers should be allowed to carry out their duties in full including their attendance at North-South Ministerial Council meetings.
"I believe this to be a very serious matter from where I sit and from my knowledge of the way in which is it affecting the overall working of the institutions, I know it to be a serious default," the SDLP deputy leader said.
"I want to put that default right.
"Everybody has a veto. We all have vetoes in this situation.
"Mr Trimble has a veto. I have a veto. Every single party in the Executive has its own veto but that is negative equity.
"That will never ensure the workings of the Agreement nor will it ever ensure that those things that we have agreed will properly reach their potential.
"To be throwing vetoes around in relation to what we are trying to do and we are trying to create, I think is entirely the wrong approach. Vetoes are of no use except in a negative sense."
PA