NORTHERN Irish politicians announced  an agreement yesterday to sustain the troubled power-sharing government after round-the-clock negotiations.

Politicians from both sides of the Stormont Assembly have spent the past 11 weeks seeking to resolve several chronic disputes that had threatened to destroy their delicately balanced concord, which has been the cornerstone of progress towards peace in the divided region.

Bleary-eyed negotiators had camped out overnight at the government complex in east Belfast as they inched toward an agreed text outlining a political way forward.

Yesterday afternoon, they announced the breakthrough and published a 75-point agreement on welfare spending, the display of British and Irish symbols and other long-unresolved arguments.