SDLP to set up all-Ireland group

Mark Durkan is to set up a review group

The SDLP is to set up a working group to look at all-Ireland political links with other parties.

Party leader Mark Durkan revealed the initiative in his speech to the party conference in Armagh.

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern, who heads a group looking at an all-Ireland role for Fianna Fail, also addressed the conference.

Ulster Unionist Basil McCrea also spoke, wishing the SDLP well for the future, "perhaps even a shared future".

This followed the SDLP's Margaret Ritchie's address to the UUP conference last week.

Links

Fianna Fail's decision to look at moving north has not been welcomed by everyone in the SDLP.

However, the group Mr Ahern heads is now expected to liase with the one announced by Mr Durkan.

The review group is expected to report in a year.

Mr Ahern told the conference: "Just as in the post-May scenario you need to look at what the future holds for your party, in Fianna Fail we are looking too.

"In the new political dispensation, we do not believe there is any logic as to why we should not look northwards."

Mr Durkan said the internal working group would look at a realignment of politics throughout Ireland.

"As we engage with different parties and some outside party politics, we will be building on our own review discussions," he said.

"An SDLP working group on all-Ireland politics and realignment will develop our thinking.

Both for ourselves and with others, we need to create a coherent framework to consider all the relevant issues, implications and ideas."

In September, the SDLP leader said that a possible merger between his party and Fianna Fail could not be ruled out.

He was responding to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern who said his party was to organise in Northern Ireland for the first time.

Paramilitarism

Meanwhile, Margaret Ritchie, the social development minister, has told the conference that all paramilitrarism in Northern Ireland must end.

Ms Ritchie, who recently withdrew £1.2m from a UDA-linked community regeneration fund, said the biggest problems facing many areas were anti-social behaviour, crime and paramilitarism.

"In some respects, in terms of the peace process, this is the last piece of the jigsaw," she said.

"That is why I have taken a firm stand in relation to the funding of projects linked to paramilitary groups.

"It is simply time to move beyond the paramilitary era."