Brown in Northern Ireland for Stormont crisis talks

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Irish premier Brian Cowen arrived in Northern Ireland last night to lead emergency talks aimed at saving Stormont's crisis-hit power-sharing government.

The dramatic intervention by the British and Irish leaders was announced earlier yesterday after a last-ditch attempt by Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists to find agreement over the devolution of policing powers failed.

Amid fears that republicans could collapse the fragile institutions - forcing a snap assembly election - if the DUP do not agree to a swift transfer of law and order responsibilities from London, the two governments will meet both parties at Hillsborough Castle in Co Down.

Mr Brown and Mr Cowen decided to fly to the province after holding talks at Downing Street in the afternoon.

"We believe that the problems that exist in devolving policing and justice are soluble problems," Mr Brown said.

"We believe it is right for Northern Ireland to move forward in this way and we believe that together we can assist in the completion of these talks."

The two premiers arrived in Hillsborough at 5 p.m. in an 11-vehicle cavalcade escorted by a fleet of police outriders.

Their arrival came hours after a crunch meeting between DUP leader Peter Robinson and Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in Parliament Buildings at Stormont.

The exchange lasted little more than half an hour and ended without resolution.

Earlier, Mr McGuinness accused the DUP of failing to fulfil its obligations in regard to policing and justice.

The senior republican claimed that, while his party had backed new policing structures after the 2006 St Andrews Agreement which paved the way for power-sharing, the DUP had yet to agree to a key element of that accord - namely devolving law and order powers to the Stormont Executive.

The region's largest unionist party has claimed there is still not sufficient community confidence to justify the move.

Specifically, the DUP has demanded changes to the current process of managing contentious parades in Northern Ireland before the transfer of responsibilities from Westminster can go ahead.

But Mr McGuinness said: "Within three months of the St Andrews Agreement we in Sinn Fein moved forward decisively on the issue of policing, took what was considered to be an historic and monumental decision.

"And we did that within three months of St Andrews... to ensure that these institutions would work.

"Three years on, three years on, we are waiting for the DUP to deliver and honour their commitments, that all of us were supposed to have signed up to under the terms of an agreement that was presided over by the Irish government and the British government."