IRELAND: JOHN BRUTON AND JOHN HUME MEET FOR URGENT TALKS

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• published: 21 Jul 2015
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English/Nat The Irish Prime Minister John Bruton and the S-D-L-P leader John Hume have met for urgent talks on the events in Northern Ireland over the last week. Bruton criticised the British government's handling of the crisis but said that both governments needed to start working together again. Irish Prime Minister held the meeting in Dublin's parliament buildings at the request of the S-D-L-P leader John Hume. Senior ministers from the Irish government and leaders of Ulster's mainly Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party talked over the events of last week which saw nights of rioting throughout Northern Ireland. The violence was sparked following the R-U-C's (Royal Ulster Constabulary) decision to block, and then allow a traditional Protestant march through a Catholic area. The whole peace process is now in doubt as accusations fly about who is to blame for the rioting in which one man was killed. The Irish Prime Minister or Taoiseach was critical of the way the British government handled the crisis accusing it of acting on its own. He called for both governments to start working together again . SOUNDBITE: (English) "Its is, as John Hume said, a very important that the two governments work together, they did not work together the actions that were taken on the Garvaghy Road were not an expression of governments working together, there were unilateral decisions on the part of the British government. But we believe that the early calling of an Anglo-Irish conference under the Anglo-Irish Agreement will help to restore a common sense of populace action in this area which is crucial." SUPER CAPTION: John Bruton, Irish Prime Minister His statements criticising the British government were not as strong as those delivered in a television interview last week, which reportedly left British Prime Minister John Major "incandescent" with anger. Instead, he called for all sides to move forward and at least try to see each other's point of view - something he said had been missing from last weeks crisis. SOUNDBITE: "Difficult as it is, and painful as it is we have got to put the events of the last week behind us, learn our lessons from them certainly but put them behind us and start again the painful and difficult process of building a consensus towards reconciliation. And that involves people being willing to be sensitive to the feelings of other people, and that was something that was manifestly absent at Drumcree, we need to see restoration of that sense of seeing the other point of view which Unionists have shown in the past they are well able to do in proper circumstances, we want to create those circumstances where there will be real efforts at reconciliation in a structured context, in the context of talks that are clearly going somewhere." SUPER CAPTION: John Bruton, Irish Prime Minister John Hume reiterated his belief that the talks process was the only way forward despite the party's decision on Saturday that it would be pulling out of the Northern Ireland Forum - the 110-strong body elected in May. He said the S-D-L-P and its representatives will remain and participate in all-party talks. SOUNDBITE: "We see as a priority both governments making it very clear as the Taoiseach, has already done today that the talks process is central to resolving this whole issue. The forum was a side show which was supposed to be about building confidence and reconciliation and we were quite willing to do that. But the way the forum was going quite clearly was going in the opposite direction." SUPER CAPTION: John Hume, S-D-L-P leader The Irish Premier did not rule out an early summit with his British counterpart - John Major to clear the air over last week's disastrous events. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/41619ea6e2af5d59b96328400409bd67 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork