Newsnight debate: Ken Maginnis and Martin McGuinness go head to head

The two opponents challenge each other on Newsnight

Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionists Go Head to Head

The Ulster Unionist MP, Ken Maginnis, and the Sinn Fein spokesman, Martin McGuinness, took part in the face-to-face discussion on BBC Television's Newsnight - and as expected there were heated exchanges between both.

Mr Maginnis said he'd agreed to take part because he wished to find out what Sinn Fein and the IRA wanted. He warned that if they came to next month's all-party talks, threatening more violence, then there could be no progress.

He insisted that he wanted assurances about the decommissioning of IRA weapons ahead of next month's all-party talks. And went on to accuse Martin McGuinness of being the Godfather of the IRA, saying he had sanctioned a number of terrorist killings over the years. The Sinn Fein representative denied the charge.

McGuinness: Encouraged

Mr McGuinness said it was courageous of the Unionist MP to appear with him. He said the fact that the two men were taking part in the programme was a big success and a victory for the people.

There was no perceptible change in either politician's stance on the crucial issues of paramilitary disarmament or the consent of the people of Northern Ireland to any change in the constitution.

After the broadcast, the leader of the Democratic Unionists, the Reverend Ian Paisley, declared that sitting down with Sinn Fein at the all party talks on the future of Northern Ireland would amount to what he described as a total surrender. Once again he called on the leaders of the Ulster Unionist Party to pull out of the talks at Stormont near Belfast.

Newspapers in Northern Ireland described the debate as a draw. Nationalist papers said Mr McGuinness had scored important points, while loyalist-leaning papers said the same of Mr Maginnis.

The precise timing of IRA disarmament has been one of the biggest obstacles to all-party talks, which are due to resume on 15 September. Unionists, who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, have demanded that disarmament be a condition for accepting Sinn Fein into the talks.

The debate comes as the Government is trying to build on the new IRA ceasefire which began on 20 July. Security officials say there has been a marked absence of violent incidents since the ceasefire, and the Army has responded by stepping down its presence on the streets of Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam, will decide at the end of August whether the IRA ceasefire is genuine, so allowing Sinn Fein into all-party peace talks due to resume on 15 September.

Maginnis: Pessimistic

Sinn Fein demands that its long-term goal of unifying Ireland be included in the talks. Other issues it wants to tackle include the release of Republican prisoners, equality of treatment of Catholics in the province, and Protestant parades which nationalists regard as provocative.

The unionists are discomfited by the speed with which the Labour Government is moving on Northern Ireland. The previous Conservative government waited more than nine months before holding a meeting with Gerry Adams after the original IRA ceasefire declared in 1994.

There have been two previous similar debates. Ken Maginnis took part in a debate with the Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams on the American channel CNN. A debate between Mr Maginnis and Sinn Fein's chairman, Mitchell McLaughlin, was pre-recorded for a BBC Northern Ireland programme - hours before the Docklands bomb ended the previous IRA ceasefire in 1996; it was shown only in a very curtailed form.

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