DEAD ON PETER; I'll not accept your deadline deal threat, Paisley warns Hain We'll only share power when we get proof of Sinn Fein change ELECTION '07: 13 DAYS TO GO.

Byline: By MIRROR REPORTER

UNIONISTS do not believe Peter Hain's threats about a deadline for power-sharing at Stormont, Ian Paisley insisted yesterday.

Launching his party's 64-page Assembly Election manifesto, the DUP leader stressed that any decision he made on power-sharing would not be determined on deadlines but rather on delivery from republicans on support for policing, the courts and the rule of law.

As the party continued to argue that only Sinn Fein and the Government could determine if there would be power-sharing by March 26, the North Antrim MP said: "We are not calendar-led. I'm afraid the Secretary of State has made a liar of himself with his threats.

"I told him recently, 'Make no more blackmailing comments to the unionist people. We don't believe you. All the dates you have given us, you have had to bow yourself out of them. Now if you want to go on doing that you are only destroying yourself.

"Cut it out and get down to your friends in the IRA and get them to do what you told me in Parliament that you would get them to do, that they would completely and totally repudiate terrorism and become democrats'."

The DUP manifesto resisted pressure from the British and Irish Governments for the party to state now that it was prepared to form a power-sharing Executive featuring Sinn Fein.

The document insisted there needed to be proof on the ground that Sinn Fein's appeals for co-operation with the police were being heeded by republicans.

The manifesto said if there was a delay to powersharing, it would be either Sinn Fein or the Government's fault.

The party insisted there would also be little point in forming a devolved administration if Chancellor Gordon Brown failed to come up with an adequate economic package to enable power-sharing ministers to tackle the infrastructural challenges facing them.

UUP leader Sir Reg Empey accused the DUP of holding the manifesto and party together by reprinting their executive's resolution from last November.

He claimed: "The whole DUP manifesto is devoid of any commitment whatsoever to the people of Northern Ireland on a return for devolution.

"The party that called for an election is too gutless, for fear of splitting right down the middle, to tell people what it stands for and what they are asking people to vote for."

SDLP chief Mark Durkan - who was joined on the campaign trail in Newry, Co Down, by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny - rounded on the DUP for insisting the primary issue in the election was about who would be the largest Assembly party.

The Foyle MP said: "Yet again we are seeing the DUP trying to make out that this election is all about who will be First Minister.

"At a time when people across the North are being hit hard in their pockets by Direct Rule, it is just wrong for the DUP to try to pretend that the election is all about who gets what perks and titles. This election is about who can deliver real progress for people and nothing else."

At Sinn Fein's campaign, leader Gerry Adams dismissed DUP suggestions that the economic package was a precondition for devolved government.

The West Belfast MP claimed that his party was the first to argue for a peace dividend.

He added: "We are the party that said if there was under-funding in terms of all those infrastructural matters then the British Government has to pick up the tab for all of that.

"We have also said in terms of the peace dividend as we go through demilitarisation and out of a conflict process that both Governments should be picking up the tab for all of that.

"But is that a precondition? No, it is not. It is a necessary part of the process of developing and nourishing what was under-nourished and undermined.

"It is not a precondition and I think what you are getting from the DUP is a bit, once more, of posturing."

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CAPTION(S):

READY Ian Paisley with DUP candidates yesterday; PUSH Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein MLA hopefuls