Northern Ireland's political parties are all expected to give their support by Friday's deadline to proposals for restoring provincial self-rule -- but with qualifications that could skew the rest of the timetable, according to Reuters. Sinn Fein, the province's second-largest party and main Irish nationalist grouping, earlier this week backed plans drawn up by Britain and Ireland to kickstart a regional assembly but warned more work was needed to get institutions up and running. In particular, it wants a timeframe for the devolution of policing and justice powers from Westminster to Belfast. A poll conducted by the BBC and published on Thursday showed more than half of Northern Ireland's voters supported the St. Andrews agreement, a series of steps put forward by the British and Irish governments last month to revive a Belfast assembly. But most believe the assembly, which has to accommodate opposing parties with competing visions of the future, will not be functional by a March target date set by London and Dublin. Nationalist parties, like Sinn Fein, favour an eventual union with the Republic of Ireland and must share power in the assembly with "loyalist" parties like the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), who want this enclave at the northern tip of the island of Ireland to remain a province of the United Kingdom. Some 54 percent of the 1,100 people surveyed supported the deal -- in which Sinn Fein must commit to supporting the police and the DUP agree to share power with its long-time enemies -- but 63 percent expected slippage on deadlines.
