Scandal-hit first minister returns to work

AFP - Northern Ireland leader Peter Robinson said Wednesday he had been cleared of breaching official rules over claims linked to his wife's former teenage lover, which compounded a political crisis.
  
Robinson announced the resumption of his duties as First Minister, a post from which he stepped aside temporarily last month pending the inquiry by a government-appointed lawyer.
  
"I have acted at all times properly, and in compliance with my public duties," he said in a statement issued by his office.
  
An internal investigation had found there were no breaches of the ministerial code of conduct of his pledge of office, the statement said, adding that he was considering taking legal action over the claims.
  
Robinson announced on January 11 that he was standing aside after his wife Iris admitted an affair with a 19-year-old, and a BBC programme alleged financial impropriety by her and possible breach of rules by him.
  
The BBC programme said she had secured 50,000 pounds (56,000 euros, 80,000 dollars) from two wealthy developers to help her lover, Kirk McCambley, set up a cafe.
  
Peter Robinson denied any knowledge of the deal, which he would have had to report to parliamentary authorities. His wife resigned as a deputy and was undergoing psychiatric treatment.
  
A senior lawyer, Paul Maguire, was appointed to give advice on the claims made against Robinson in the BBC investigative Spotlight programme, which revealed his wife's affair and reported financial arrangements linked to it.
  
"I welcome (Maguire's) detailed advice which follows a thorough and comprehensive examination of all the issues raised in the Spotlight programme," Robinson said.
  
While standing aside, Robinson has led continuing negotiations between his pro-London Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Republican Sinn Fein aimed at agreeing the transfer of law and order powers from London to Belfast.
  
Tension in the long-troubled province was highlighted by a minor explosion overnight outside a Belfast police station, which destroyed a fence but caused no injuries.
  
Earlier Wednesday Britain's Northern Ireland minister Shaun Woodward said "considerable progress" had been made in the talks, but added that they were "on the edge."
  
Talks between the two parties, which share power in Belfast, have so far failed to break the deadlock, which Sinn Fein blames on the DUP's demands for concessions on controversial Protestant parades that pass near Catholic areas.
  
Britain and Ireland helped broker the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which largely ended three decades of violence that killed at least 3,500 people and led to the creation of the power-sharing executive.
  
But Northern Ireland is still dogged by sporadic violence. A policeman and two soldiers were shot dead last year in attacks blamed on dissident republicans and a policeman lost a leg in a car bomb this month.
  
British and Irish premiers Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen made an unscheduled visit to Belfast last week to try to push the negotiations forward, and it is widely expected that they will return in the event of a deal.
  
Cowen told the Irish parliament Wednesday that progress was being made "inch-by-inch".
  
"They are taking longer than may have been anticipated by some. I would hope that these matters can be brought to a successful conclusion sooner rather than later," Cowen said.