LAST UPDATE | 4 Feb 2022

TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said that “no one party” should have a veto on the Northern Ireland Assembly being operational amid DUP threats not to support power sharing. 

The Stormont Executive was last night formally been shorn of governing powers after DUP First Minister Paul Givan quit the administration.

Givan’s resignation automatically removed Sinn Féin deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill from her position as well.

Other Stormont ministers can remain in post but the Executive can no longer meet and is unable to take significant policy decisions.

Stormont is due to hold fresh elections in May and the DUP’s move has been branded as “a fairly cynical electoral manoeuvre” by the Alliance Party. 

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald branded the DUP tactics a “disgrace” and called for May’s already scheduled Assembly election to be brought forward.

Speaking to BBC’s The Nolan Show earlier today, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson refused to say if his party would support the power-sharing executive if Sinn Féin was to take the role as First Minister if they were the larger party. 

Asked what the DUP would do in those circumstances, Donaldson said: 

My party will come to a collective view as to what we’d do in the circumstances you have outlined. But I am going to run around in this election talking about the defeat of unionism and what we would do in those circumstances.

Donaldson has also said that his party will not support power-sharing if DUP concerns over the Protocol are not met. 

Givan’s resignation is part of the DUP’s escalating protest strategy against the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Speaking this evening, An Taoiseach said one party should not decide whether or not the Assembly can operate. 

“No one party should have a veto over whether an executive exists or continues and likewise with the Assembly. I believe that the decision from the DUP is very damaging to politics itself and to people’s to trust in politics,” he said.,

Because people when they elect public representatives, I think there’s a fair expectation from the public that those political representatives would serve in the Assembly or in the Executive and do what they campaign to do. 

Martin added that European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic had “shown good faith and responded quickly” to unionist concerns over the Protocol. 

It’s not the European Union’s fault that this has gone on so long in respect of the talks around the resolution of issues pertaining to the Protocol and the trade agreement. Those discussions are now continuing between the European Union and the United Kingdom and the conclusion of those talks should have been awaited, in my view, by the DUP.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney also said today that the DUP’s move was “very unhelpful” while negotiations between the European Union and the UK were continuing.

“What’s happened now is the DUP have made a political decision to collapse the executive in Northern Ireland, which means politics can’t function as it should and needs to in Northern Ireland right now, because one party has decided to pull everything down,” Coveney told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme.

“It’s enormously frustrating for the other parties, who may have very different perspectives on things and don’t agree sometimes but they agree on one thing; that politicians have an obligation to work together to solve problems in Northern Ireland.

“And the DUP have decided to isolate themselves from that thinking and I think that’s very unhelpful.”

The foreign affairs minister added that there is no perfect solution to Northern Ireland’s situation following Brexit but the protocol was agreed between the UK and EU with input from Northern Ireland’s parties, including the DUP.

Givan’s announcement yesterday came 24 hours after Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots acted unilaterally to order a halt to agri-food checks at Northern Ireland ports required under the post-Brexit trading arrangements.

Civil servants have yet to implement the instruction, pending legal clarity on their obligations, and checks are continuing.

Justifying his departure, Givan said the protocol, which has created trade barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, had undermined a cornerstone of powersharing in the region – governance with the consent of both nationalists and unionists.

DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson told Morning Ireland that his party had been “very patient” about the issue of the protocol in recent months.

“It is causing societal damage to Northern Ireland, and yet we’ve waited months and months and months, and no progress has been made in the talks between the UK and the EU,” he said.

“When I met Liz Truss, who was appointed by the Prime Minister’s as the chief UK negotiator at the end of last year, she asked me a straight question: ‘What is your limit here? ‘When do you need to be progress by?’

“And I gave her a firm date: 31 January. I was open with Liz Truss. I told her what we needed.”

Donaldson said he met with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week to ask him what the likelihood of an agreement with the EU on the protocol by mid-February was, claiming that he was told there was “between a 20 and 30 per cent chance”.

“The EU and the Irish government, in particular, have argued for a long time that the main purpose of the protocol is to protect the Good Friday Agreement and the political institutions,” he continued.

“Despite that, the Irish Government and the Eu have completely ignored the fact that no unionist elected representative in Northern Ireland supports the protocol. There is no unionist consent for the protocol.

“That cuts right through the heart of the principle of consent and the principle of consensus which [are] right in the centre of the Good Friday Agreement.”

Flurry of activity

Givan’s resignation removed O’Neill from her job because, under Stormont’s powersharing rules, one cannot hold office without the other.

There was a flurry of activity within Givan and O’Neill’s joint office last night as the ministers pushed through some outstanding decisions before leaving office.

They confirmed the appointment of a new victims’ commissioner. Ian Jeffers, who has extensive experience in the not-for-profit sector, will take up the post for a four-year term.

The ministers also reappointed Attorney General Brenda King for a further three-year term.

This morning, Alliance leader Naomi Long said Givan’s resignation was “a fairly cynical electoral manoeuvre from the DUP”.

“It stops us being able to make progress for people in Northern Ireland and there comes a point where if we are going to be serious about politics we need to be able to work through our difficulties,” she said.

““I am not denying there is a problem, I have never denied there is an issue with the protocol. I think it is as a direct consequence of Brexit that we are in this mess, which the DUP campaigned for and supported.

“We need to be really clear about how we ended up where we are.”

Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie said all parties need to work together for the betterment of Northern Ireland and the DUP’s actions were “pointless”. 

“There is absolutely a concern about the protocol within unionism and loyalism. There’s a frustration there as well, I hear it all the time, and we need to try and address that,” Beattie told Morning Ireland.

“The UK government’s negotiations with the EU need to come up with solutions and it’s moving in the right direction, that’s the main thing. Removing our First Minister will not change that.

We will still be in same negotiations whether we have a First Minister or not. So, it was a pointless action, which is going to affect negatively the people of Northern Ireland.

Thursday’s events in Northern Ireland unfolded as UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic met to take stock of negotiations aimed at reducing the red tape associated with the protocol.

The pair will meet again in London next week to continue discussions.

With reporting from Céimin Burke and Rónán Duffy