The UK government has “overindulged” the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and must restore Stormont with or without them, according to the deputy leader of the Alliance Party.
Stephen Farry said Northern Ireland is in a “farcical situation” where more than 70 per cent of the electorate voted for parties who want powersharing returned but has now been “isolated” due to the DUP’s boycott of the institutions.
It is almost two years since the DUP quit the executive and effectively collapsed Stormont in protest over post-Brexit trading arrangements.
Northern Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris insisted last month that long-running talks between the UK government and the DUP on the Windsor Framework deal to address trading concerns have “effectively concluded”.
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But DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said dialogue was continuing and has indicated talks will resume in coming days.
A pre-Christmas £3.3 billion package to tackle the North’s budgetary pressures and a public sector pay dispute was offered by the UK government dependent on Stormont’s restoration. The move followed extensive talks with the main political parties at Hillsborough Castle.
On Friday, Mr Farry called on Mr Heaton-Harris to intervene in advance of an all-out day of strike action by public sector staff on January 18th – the same date the Northern Secretary has a legal duty to call another Assembly election.
The Alliance deputy said people in Northern Ireland were “fed up” with the stalemate and erosion of frontline services, particularly in the NHS.
The powersharing system of government is central to the 1998 Belfast Agreement and Mr Farry pledged his party’s support for “continuing powersharing”.
Asked about the mandate of those who had voted for the DUP, the North’s largest unionist party, he told the BBC:
“If you want to talk about mandates, you’ve just over 70 per cent of the population of Northern Ireland who voted for other parties who are committed to the institutions being restored straight away. What about their mandate?
“We have a situation over the past two years where the UK government has been indulging, indeed many people would say, overindulging, the DUP. We’ve had this circus of secret talks going on and one with seemingly no conclusion to them ... no decision has been taken.
“Frankly, the people of Northern Ireland are fed up.”
He confirmed the Alliance Party has put forward a proposal to allow the next biggest party to take on the office of deputy first minister in the absence of either of the two larger parties – Sinn Féin and the DUP.
Alliance is currently the third largest party at Stormont.
“Over the past 25 years the Assembly has only been operational for 60 per cent of the time, so clearly there is a problem in terms of how the structures are working,” he said.
“We’re talking about continuing powersharing and preserving the principles of the Good Friday Agreement, but learning the lessons of what happened in the past.”
Mr Farry warned that Northern is “careering into deeper and deeper crisis” amid the deadlock.
“We don’t have any institutions, we don’t have any stability ... We are risking yet another year of decline, another year of a health service falling backwards ... trust in politicians going backwards. The stakes here are incredibly high.”
DUP East Derry MP Gregory Campbell accused Mr Farry of “abandoning consensus politics by excluding unionists”.
“Northern Ireland only makes progress when unionists and nationalists are on board,” he said.
Asked to respond to Mr Farry’s criticism of the UK government and calls for the Northern Secretary to intervene, a spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) said Mr Heaton-Harris and his team “are continuing to engage with all parties to find a way forward and support Executive restoration.”
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