MARTIN McGUINNESS and Peter Robinson have pledged to resolve the difficulties that have paralysed the Stormont executive for months.

“I will be meeting with Peter next week so that we can continue the work of finding the way through,” McGuinness told the BBC yesterday. “If we are working off the same hymn sheet, I think we will resolve the difficulties that have held things up.”

Robinson promised a DUP meeting on Friday that he was working for the devolution of policing and justice powers to Stormont, a key Sinn Fein concern.

The executive has not met since June because Sinn Fein ministers have been pressuring the DUP by refusing to attend. A meeting is scheduled for Thursday and, if Sinn Fein boycotts it, a meeting of the north-south ministerial council due to be held on Friday will probably be cancelled too.

“Sinn Fein’s harmful obstruction of executive business is eroding confidence not only in devolving new powers but in the devolution we have already achieved,” Robinson told party workers in Fermanagh. He added: “We want devolution [of policing and justice] to take place, and it will.”

This is taken as an indication that he is selling the idea to his party.

Other parties believe the crisis was masterminded by Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, who wants quicker movement from the DUP. Most political observers believe that Adams held back while Ian Paisley was DUP leader but calculated that Robinson would be vulnerable to pressure.

Yesterday, McGuinness accused the DUP of not treating Sinn Fein and nationalists as equals. By way of example he said that Robinson had refused to issue a joint statement congratulating the Tyrone senior team on their victory in the GAA All-Ireland football final last weekend.

“We had the ludicrous situation during the summer where there was a proposition that a joint wreath would be laid by the first and deputy first minister at the commemoration in Omagh and the DUP refused to participate in that,” McGuinness added.

But the Sinn Fein MP made a point of scotching rumours that he had personal difficulties with Robinson. He denied that he had had a better relationship with Paisley during the “chuckle brothers” era, when they made a point of laughing and smiling in each other’s company.

“There were difficulties during that period. That was a settling-in process,” McGuinness said about sharing an office with Paisley.

“I think it is important to make it clear that there is no personality clash whatsoever between Peter Robinson and myself. I have as cordial a working relationship with Peter Robinson as I had with Ian Paisley.”

Sinn Fein has painted the Paisley era in glowing terms, but has been warned by the DUP that this approach could provoke an unhelpful intervention from Paisley. Last week the former DUP leader criticised Bertie Ahern, with whom he enjoyed a warm relationship, after the former taoiseach suggested that he had committed to devolution of policing at St Andrew’s.

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