Plan to Restore N. Ireland Self-Rule Offered

The prime ministers of Britain and Ireland announced an ambitious plan Friday for restoring power to Northern Ireland’s suspended Roman Catholic-Protestant administration by May 22.

Speaking shortly before midnight after more than 30 hours of negotiations with local parties, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said all sides had agreed to consider a “target date” for resuming power-sharing.

“The two governments have put proposals to the parties, and, subject to a positive response, it will be the intention of the governments to reinstate the institutions on the 22nd of May,” Blair said at Hillsborough Castle, the negotiating site southwest of Belfast.

May 22 is the second anniversary of the overwhelming ratification of the Good Friday peace accord in public referendums. The historic pact also made the date the deadline for Northern Ireland’s rival paramilitary groups to disarm, an unfulfilled goal that repeatedly has stymied wider political progress.

A linchpin of the prime ministers’ new plan is to extend that deadline for total disarmament to June 2001--a concession likely to fuel Protestant opposition to the proposal.

A four-party coalition that included Sinn Fein--the Irish Republican Army’s political wing--took office in Northern Ireland in December, but Britain suspended the administration’s powers in February after the IRA refused to begin disarming as part of the deal.

Both Blair and Ahern emphasized that they couldn’t force Protestant politicians to resume sharing power with Sinn Fein. They said a positive response soon from the outlawed IRA will be essential for the four-party administration to regain its authority by May 22.

“It’s now incumbent upon the parties, and perhaps in particular the paramilitary organizations, to give their response to the proposals we’ve made,” Blair said, with Ahern standing at his side. “I very much hope that that response is positive and, in particular, that we can make sure that the arms issue is dealt with completely and verifiably.”

Ahern said, “I’d be very disappointed if the response from the paramilitaries was not extremely positive.”