SINN FÉIN HAS criticised the DUP’s suggestion that it may choose not to elect a new Speaker when the Stormont Assembly meets on Friday.

Jeffrey Donaldson said that his party has yet to decide whether to vote to elect a new Speaker when MLAs meet in the chamber in two days.

The election of the new Speaker is the first item on the agenda for MLAs following the election and requires cross-community support from nationalist and unionist members.

The DUP is refusing to return to the power-sharing Executive until its issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol are resolved.

Speaking after a meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney, Michelle O’Neill said the Speaker has to be elected.

She said: “What we need to see is the positions filled – First Minister, deputy First Minister, all the ministerial positions filled – and let’s get down to doing business.

“I don’t think it is good enough. It is not good enough for the people here that the DUP is holding society to ransom, punishing society, preventing the establishment of a Speaker and an Executive to actually respond to the things people are worried about.

“I don’t think it is acceptable, the position Jeffrey Donaldson has articulated today.”

Donaldson told BBC Radio Ulster that his party will decide by Friday whether to elect a new Speaker.

He said: “We will be there on Friday. Our members will be there to sign the roll. We will make a decision as to how we proceed. We’ll get the group together and we’ll determine how best to take this forward.

“I’m waiting to see what the Government has to say. So that is the priority right now, to ensure that what the Government say is moving us in the right direction.

“I’m simply saying that we will need to make a decision on that. That’s one of the decisions we’ve got to make.”

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is set to tell the EU that the dispute over Northern Ireland cannot drag on, amid concerns in Europe that the UK is poised to take unilateral action on the post-Brexit arrangements in the region.

Those concerns are shared in Dublin, and Coveney visited Belfast on Friday for talks with several of the Stormont parties in a bid to break the impasse on a return to power-sharing.

Ms O’Neill said her meeting with Coveney was “constructive” because Sinn Fein has a “shared interest” in restoring the Executive.

“It is obvious that we made the case that we want the Executive up and running, working on behalf of the people,” she said.

“There should be no more delays. That should have happened by now. We had the election results last week. The people have had their say.

“We encourage all parties to turn up on Friday.”

Ms O’Neill insisted that the Northern Ireland Protocol cannot be scrapped.

“The protocol is here to stay. There are ways to smooth its implementation, and we are certainly up for that, but the rhetoric from the British Government in the last number of days is serving only to pander to the DUP.”