Irish PM 'on standby' over Northern Ireland power-sharing deal

Northern Ireland's assembly today postponed first minister's questions, further fuelling speculation that Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) are about to break the deadlock in talks aimed at saving power-sharing. The acting first minister, Arlene Foster, and deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, asked that parliamentary questions at Stormont be put off until next week. The development came as the Irish prime minister, Brian Cowen, called off a scheduled meeting in Madrid with his Spanish counterpart, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Irish government sources said Cowen was being briefed on the Hillsborough Castle talks and was on standby to head north if the negotiations reach a successful conclusion today. The DUP and Sinn Féin leaderships are currently briefing their respective parties on the details of discussions over the last week. Any deal will see changes to the way contentious loyalist parades are handled in Northern Ireland and a commitment to give more resources to the Irish language. If the parties reach an agreement then policing and justice powers will be handed over to the assembly. According to McGuinness, the parties had made "considerable progress" during talks at the weekend . One DUP MP has proposed that any deal should be put before the public before it is finalised. Gregory Campbell said the community should be asked about any arrangement hammered out between the two parties. "People need to be consulted, they need to see the bones of the deal and the detail of it, and then give a response that allows us to say whether we proceed or don't." The Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, said that if Campbell was suggesting consulting the whole community, not just unionists, then his approach was "novel". "I think it would be really cool for the people of Garvaghy Road to have Gregory coming down to ask them how he should proceed," the West Belfast MP said, referring to the predominantly nationalist area in Portadown. "It would even be a very novel idea for people from working-class unionist areas. But the main thing is to get the agreement. We are not there yet. Some significant work has been done and we are meeting very soon to finish off, I hope, the remaining points." The Northern Ireland secretary, Shaun Woodward, flew back to Belfast last night after briefing the prime minister in London on the detail of the negotiations. Gordon Brown may join Cowen in returning to Northern Ireland later today if a deal is finalised. The pair chaired the talks between the parties for three days last week. On Wednesday, Brown and Cowen said that if there was no deal within 48 hours they would publish their own proposals, but that deadline was allowed to pass with the parties still locked in discussions.