Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has urged the DUP to reconsider its refusal to restore the Northern Ireland Executive in the wake of the political turmoil in London in order to avoid the triggering of new elections next Friday.
Mr Coveney said that he understood DUP concern about outstanding issues over the Northern Ireland protocol, but the reality was that there was little chance of the European Union being able to resolve those matters without an effective administration in Westminster.
Liz Truss’s resignation as British prime minister and the fact the Conservative party will spend the next week deciding on who will be their new leader and the new prime minister effectively means the EU will not be able to make any progress on the Northern Ireland protocol issue, he said.
“The DUP ask is they want the outstanding protocol issues to be resolved but to expect to resolve them before October 28th, which is the legal deadline when a new election to be announced, when there is effectively no British government in place is essentially asking for the impossible.”
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Mr Coveney said “triggering an election on the back of an impossible task” would only lead to more polarisation and he urged the DUP to reflect on the fact that some progress had been in made in talks between the EU and the UK in recent weeks towards resolving the issues around the protocol.
“I know this isn’t an easy issue for the DUP and we [the Irish Government] want to respond to the legitimate concerns of the unionist community in Northern Ireland in terms of how the protocol is implemented and I believe the EU wants to respond as well.”
“We have made some progress certainly in terms of improving the tone of discussion and conversation between the UK and the EU in recent weeks – we want to continue that with a new Prime Minister when they are in place in Downing Street next Friday.
“I think really the choice is now with the DUP – do they want to give those talks some space when they were starting to make some progress, or do they want to trigger an election in Northern Ireland which nobody wants and which will increase the polarization of opinion?
Former Northern Ireland first minister, Paul Givan of the DUP, had said prior to Ms Truss’s resignation at British PM on Thursday, that it would take “a miracle” for the Northern Ireland executive to be restored before the October 28th deadline.
Mr Givan said chaos at Westminster was “contaminating the politics of trying to get a deal with the EU” but said it was “not for the DUP to get the government off the hook” and he insisted his party would welcome another assembly election.
“But will it solve the problems? No, it won’t,” he added.
The Northern Ireland Office has reiterated since Ms Truss’s resignation on Thursday that if the Stormont executive is not reconstituted by October 28th, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris will “come under a legal duty” to call an election which would be expected to take place on December 15th.
Mr Coveney said that he had spoken to all five main parties in Northern Ireland and nobody he had spoken to in either the unionist community or the nationalist community wanted an election, and this could be avoided if the DUP reconsidered its position in the light of events at Westminster.
“We could have an executive in the morning in Stormont – four of the five parties are ready to go and so I think the DUP do need to think about it – it’s not for me to tell them what to do but certainly from my perspective, Northern Ireland does not need an election,” he said.
“What Northern Ireland needs now is a British government that can make decisions, a European Union that is willing to compromise and an Irish government looking to try to work with all of the parties in Northern Ireland and to work with the EU and the UK to find a sensible accommodation.”
