All efforts must be made to ensure that fresh Assembly elections do not take place, Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said as the political impasse continues in Northern Ireland.
Mr Coveney was in Belfast on Wednesday where he held meetings with Sinn Féin, the Alliance Party, the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP.
With just over a fortnight until the October 28th deadline set by the UK government to order a new poll unless a Stormont executive is formed, Mr Coveney said he didn’t think it was “helpful” for Northern Ireland to have no government in place through the winter amid a cost-of-living crisis.
“That’s why we’re so committed to working with the British government to try to find ways to get devolved government working again,” he told reporters.
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Stormont’s power sharing structures effectively collapsed following the last Assembly elections in May when the DUP boycotted the formation of a new government over its ongoing protest at the Northern Ireland protocol.
Northern Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has insisted he will fulfil his legal obligation to announce an election date if the deadlock continues.
‘Mood music’
While both Irish and UK government officials have spoken of a change in the “mood music” in recent weeks in relation to a new round of negotiations — the first since February — Mr Coveney told reporters on Wednesday that a deal between the UK and EU by October 28th was “not realistic”.
Asked if he was concerned about reports that the UK government was considering extending its deadline to coincide with the 25th anniversary of The Belfast Agreement next spring and a visit by US president Joe Biden, he responded:
“Putting these things off, delaying them to a point and time in the future just creates new deadlines that when we’re approaching will be equally difficult to find accommodation.”
He added: “What we’re looking for is a breakthrough on some of these issues in the next few weeks so that we can have the basis for a step forward on some of the contentious issues before the end of October.
“And in doing so provide the momentum and encouragement in particular for the one party that is not willing to go back into the Executive for now, that actually it’s worth taking that jump.
“The next number of months are not going to be talking around in circles like we’ve seen over the last number of years. It’s time now to actually find common ground and agree common ground on the way forward so that we can put some of these issues to bed and allow Northern Ireland and its institutions to start functioning again.”
Mr Coveney said he plans return to Belfast over coming weeks to “encourage progress”.
“That’s my job, it’s the job of the new Secretary of State, we’re working closely to that end. We don’t control all the levers because of course these decisions also need to be supported by the Prime Minister’s office in London and from the European Commission as well.”
Speaking following her meeting with Mr Coveney, Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said: “I am extremely concerned that we are 16 days away from having absolutely no political leadership, political oversight and scrutiny, decision making or direction setting within government.
“We saw yesterday, for the first time, a downturn in employment and the impact that will have on individual people’s lives.
“And yet it seems that despite all of that, the DUP are willing to use the pain of the people of Northern Ireland as leverage on the protocol.”
Strong voice
Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O’Neill said it was not acceptable that an executive at Stormont has not been formed.
She added: “There is one party which is blocking that.
“We need the DUP to join with the rest of us, we need to be around the executive table, we need to be taking decisions in the best interests of people.
“We need to be a strong voice against what is happening in Britain, the fact that mortgage interest rates are going through the roof and affecting pensions.
“It is ridiculous that we don’t have a government in place.”
SDLP MLA Matthew O’Toole said his party was clear that the focus should be on dealing with the cost-of-living emergency.
“Ultimately, politicians here should be getting on with their job. We shouldn’t be boycotting our job in an emergency. We should be up on the hill dealing with the real issues our constituents are worried about.”
He added that asking people to cast their vote in a winter election would “stretch the elastic of public trust in our institutions”.
But DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said that any agreement over the protocol must produce an outcome which is acceptable to unionists.
His party did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, citing diary commitments.
Mr Donaldson said: “Whether Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom is restored by a negotiated outcome or by Parliament legislating is a matter for the government.
“We hope the negotiations can produce an outcome which is acceptable to unionists, but we are mindful that we tried working devolution for two years and negotiating at the same time only for Brussels to rebuff any progress in that period.
“I note the prime minister’s commitment today to find an outcome in talks which replicates the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.
“The government must recognise that the checks are but a symptom that Northern Ireland is subject to a different set of laws imposed upon us by a foreign entity without any say or vote by any elected representative of the people of Northern Ireland.
“We set seven tests last year. That is the yardstick we will use to measure any proposed solution.
“Devolution can have a stable and enduring future, but it must be built on solid foundations.
“Powersharing without unionist support is doomed to failure.”
