Alliance Party calls for UK government to step in over Stormont paralysis

By Rebecca Black, PA

The UK Government has been urged to step in over the ongoing political paralysis at Stormont.

Devolved government in Northern Ireland has been effectively collapsed for almost two years amid DUP protest action over post-Brexit trading arrangements.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said his party will not re-enter Stormont until unionist concerns over the Windsor Framework are addressed.

Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris convened multi-party talks at Hillsborough Castle last month to discuss a £3.3 billion (€3.8 billion) financial package for Stormont’s return.

However, without the participation of the DUP, the institutions have not been able to be reconvened.

Mr Heaton-Harris then said the talks with the DUP over the Windsor Framework had concluded, but Mr Donaldson has indicated those talks will resume in the coming days.

Alliance Party deputy leader Stephen Farry said his party has 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.

“We’ve had a situation over the past 25 years where the Assembly has only been operational for 60% of the time, so clearly there is a problem in terms of how the structures are working,” he told the BBC.

“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.

“For example, Sinn Féin took the assembly down for three years in recent times and now the DUP have collapsed the institutions for almost two years.”

Mr Farry said Northern Ireland is “falling apart” with “massive pressures in terms of public sector pay” with a series of strikes taking place by workers over pay and a major day of action planned for January 18.

“Something has to give in in this particular regard,” he said.

“We don’t have any institutions, we don’t have any stability. Northern Ireland is careering into deeper and deeper crisis, and indeed if we end up in a situation where this is allowed to continue for more and more months 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.”

Meanwhile, Mr Donaldson told the Belfast News Letter that the DUP is holding out for an outcome that “restores Northern Ireland’s place within the UK and its internal market”.

He said the talks will be under way with the UK government “within the next few days” but declined to comment on what stage those talks are at.