Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said the lack of a devolved government in Northern Ireland expands what could potentially come under ‘joint authority’ between London and Dublin as an alternative to direct rule from Westminster.
Mr Martin said there was still time to avoid fresh elections in Northern Ireland and called for the DUP to return to Stormont and facilitate the nomination of a speaker and the convening of an executive.
However, when asked what would be meant by the concept of ‘joint authority’ which has been raised this week, he indicated what Ireland’s role could be if the assembly was not convened. Mr Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar have said there should not be direct rule from London if the Northern Ireland executive is not restored.
The provisions of the Good Friday Agreement allow for British and Irish governments to engage in discussions and consultation about non-devolved matters, he said.
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“Now, when you don’t have devolution that broadens what non-devolved matters means and can encompass,” he said. “There will be meaningful engagement between the British and Irish governments in the context of the Good Friday Agreement, we don’t want to overstate that but that’s the context that exists”.
He said people in Northern Ireland were “increasingly intolerant of abstentionism” and of “the failure to fulfil the democratic mandate” that followed the Stormont elections earlier this year.
“It’s not acceptable that the peoples’ decision is not put into action by convening the assembly,” he said.
Northern Ireland was on Thursday afternoon facing a Christmas election after a last-ditch attempt to re-form the Assembly and Executive failed.
The deadline to re-establish the North’s political institutions expires at midnight. Caretaker ministers will cease to hold office and the Northern Secretary will come under a legal obligation to call an election, which he has repeatedly said he intends to do.
This fresh Assembly election must take place within 12 weeks, but December 15th is regarded as the likely date.
Proposals to elect either Patsy McGlone of the SDLP or Mike Nesbitt of the UUP as Speaker failed as they did not receive cross-community support.
Speaking to the media in the Great Hall at Parliament Buildings ahead of the debate, the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said his party’s position had not changed.
“We do not believe that sufficient progress has been made to addressing the issues of concern to the people that we represent,” he said.
He said the DUP had been given a “clear mandate” in the last Assembly election in May “that we would not nominate ministers to an Executive until decisive action was taken on the protocol.
“We are not responsible for calling the election, that is a matter for the government, we are here ready to work towards a solution on the protocol and we ask simply that people respect the mandate we have been given just as they ask us to respect their mandate,” Mr Donaldson said.
He also strongly rejected comments from the Tánaiste, Leo Varadkar, on Thursday that if it was not possible to get the Northern Executive up and running it would not be “acceptable” to return to direct rule from Westminster.
“Things have moved on so much in Northern Ireland and that’s something we’ll be conveying very clearly to the British government and the Taoiseach has done that already,” Mr Varadkar said.
“Joint authority would be an abandonment of the Good Friday Agreement”, Mr Donaldson said, adding the “Irish government needs to hear this loud and clear, unionists will never accept joint authority”.
“If joint authority is imposed on us the Good Friday Agreement is dishonoured completely and is not therefore a basis for us moving forward,” he said.
“If the Irish government thinks that by threatening me or my party with joint authority that that will help us to get to a solution that it will move us forward on the basis of mutual respect and understanding then I’m afraid the Irish government is deluded,” he said, adding that “if that’s what the Irish government wants to do then let them be honest and say it.”
However, speaking in the chamber during the recall debate, the Sinn Féin vice president and the North’s first minister designate, Michelle O’Neill, said that if the DUP continued to block power-sharing “direct rule [from Westminster], as we have known it in the past, is not an option.
“The alternative to power-sharing is joint authority from London and Dublin.”
Assembly members (MLAs) were recalled to the Stormont chamber at midday on Thursday to attempt to nominate a Speaker and deputy Speaker, the first step in the formation of an Assembly and Executive and which, under the cross-community rules governing power-sharing, requires the support of a majority of unionist and nationalist MLAs.
The DUP has refused to do so since the last Assembly election in May because of its opposition to the Northern Ireland protocol, which it says is causing economic and constitutional harm.
In her speech during that debate, Ms O’Neill said the DUP’s decision to “hold back power-sharing and hold down the public” was “futile, reckless, short-sighted and senseless”.
Mr Donaldson, she said, has “left us all at the mercy of a heartless and dysfunctional Tory government, whose own survival is all that counts”.
Those watching today’s proceedings will be “bewildered”, she said, adding that “most of us here want to do the job we were elected to do.
“Today our caretaker ministers rally to take decisions, within tight limits, before their civil servants are left in an impossible position come midnight where they are expected to run our essential public services yet have no budget and no powers.”
Alliance leader Naomi Long said she would keep her remarks short as there was “little to be said in this debate”.
“The people of Northern Ireland and their needs and their interests come first, and what is in their interests is a functioning Assembly, a functioning Executive, sustainable institutions and power-sharing,” she said.
The Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie referenced the “anger” in the Assembly chamber, which he said was “nothing compared to the anger in towns and villages across Northern Ireland” over the failure to re-establish the Executive.
The SDLP MLA Matthew O’Toole said his party was not responsible for this “mess” but he was “ashamed by it, I’m ashamed by this place” and another election would be a “farce”.
New UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has urged the DUP to get back to Stormont before the midnight deadline to trigger an election.
Asked what the prime minister’s message is, his official spokesman said: “There’s still time for the DUP and executives to get back to Stormont, and we urge them to do so because the people of Northern Ireland deserve a fully functioning and locally elected executive which can respond to the issues facing the communities there.
“That was the Northern Ireland Secretary’s message to all party leaders when they met yesterday but clearly the Northern Ireland Secretary has a statutory duty.”
Asked about a report by the House of Lords Committee on Human Rights on Westminster’s legacy bill, Mr Martin said he shared the verdict of the committee that it could lead to widespread breaches of human rights.
“We are of that view. We do not support that legacy bill, we think it’s wrong, we think any actions of unilateralism in respect of the Good Friday Agreement is wrong because within the framework of the Good Friday Agreement is that commitment to human rights and the European Human Rights Council,” he said.
“In our view on that legacy bill the idea that people cannot pursue their cases, civilly never mind in terms of prosecutions, is unacceptable,” he said.
Meanwhile, former Stormont First Minister Peter Robinson has urged the DUP to “keep your head” as the North lurches towards fresh elections. As the Assembly reconvened, Mr Robinson launched a series of broadsides at the British government, nationalists, the Ulster Unionists, the centrist Alliance Party and the media.
In a message on Facebook urging the DUP to stand firm, Mr Robinson said: “Let me see, have I got this right? Sinn Féin, who refuse to sit at Westminster are attacking the DUP for not sitting in Stormont.
“The government who refuses to call a general election to gain a mandate is insisting the Northern Ireland Assembly should have an election.”7
Dáil call for reform
In the Dáil on Thursday, Labour leader Ivana Bacik called for reforms to prevent one party “take a unilateral decision to veto power-sharing and hold all others in Northern Ireland to ransom”.
Ms Bacik said the veto had entrenched division and hollowed out centre ground parties. Current structures “take no account of the rise of support for parties that do not designate as either unionist or nationalist”.
She asked if the Government had a Plan B to ensure that after a likely election that necessary changes would be made “in keeping with the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement to ensure a functioning administration in the North”.
The Tanaiste said that while these were “very reasonable questions” but she was talking about changes to key provisions of the Belfast Agreement.
“The Good Friday Agreement was passed by a referendum here and north of the Border and making any changes to it would be profound and would have to be dealt with sensitively.”
