Northern Ireland leaders say they have reached an agreement to sustain their troubled Catholic-Protestant government. After negotiating around the clock the parties agreed a package of measures including an extra £2bn from the government.
Irish Catholic and British Protestant politicians have spent the past 11 weeks seeking to resolve several chronic disputes that threatened to destroy their 7½-year-old alliance, the cornerstone of two decades’ peacemaking.
Bleary-eyed negotiators camped out overnight at Stormont, the government complex in east Belfast, as they inched toward an agreed text outlining the political way forward.
On Tuesday afternoon, they announced a breakthrough and published a 75-point agreement on welfare spending, the display of British and Irish symbols, and other long-unresolved arguments.
Failure would have meant that the Northern Ireland Assembly was dissolved and Britain would have resumed sole responsibility for Northern Ireland’s government.
The Prime Minister, David Cameron, said: “This agreement means the UK Government has been able to offer a significant financial package that opens the way for more prosperity, stability and economic security for Northern Ireland. And it means the parties can now genuinely begin to overcome the key outstanding issues which have been unresolved since the Belfast Agreement.
“This historic agreement has been long in the making and I would also like to pay tribute to all those involved – the Northern Ireland parties, the UK and Irish governments and Senator Hart – for getting us to this position. We will now all work collaboratively to see this through. The people of Northern Ireland deserve nothing less.”>
Additional reporting from Associated Press.