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Sinn Féin Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill urged the EU and UK to intensify Protocol negotiations. PA

The latest attempt to re-establish powersharing in Stormont just failed

Sinn Féin has urged the DUP to back the election of a speaker to deliver energy support payments.

LAST UPDATE | 7 Dec 2022

THE LATEST ATTEMPT to restore the powersharing institutions at Stormont has failed, after the DUP branded a recall of the Assembly a “stunt”.

The party had been urged by Sinn Fein to drop its executive boycott to help deliver energy support payments to people in Northern Ireland struggling to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.

But during the recalled session of the Assembly today, the unionist party once again refused to back the election of a speaker, meaning that no other business could take place.

During an often heated debate, Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie apologised after stating that DUP MLAs were screaming and whining “like a girl”.

This was the fifth unsuccessful attempt to elect a Stormont speaker since the Assembly elections earlier this year.

The DUP has refused to engage with the devolved institutions in Belfast in the wake of May’s election, meaning it has not been possible to form a ministerial executive.

The boycott is part of the DUP’s campaign of opposition to Brexit’s Northern Ireland Protocol and the party says it will not return to powersharing until decisive action is taken to remove the protocol’s economic barriers on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Negotiations between the UK Government and the EU to resolve differences over the protocol are continuing.

Sinn Fein’s Stormont leader Michelle O’Neill told the Assembly that any resolution to the protocol difficulties would not be resolved at Stormont.

She urged the UK and EU to intensify negotiations but she said that in the meantime it was vital MLAs were able to do their jobs at Stormont.

“It is clear for all to see that the DUP’s political tactics is to abandon our people to a Tory government intent on inflicting cuts and austerity on the most vulnerable in our society,” she said.

Households in Northern Ireland are due to be credited with a £400 payment automatically, to help with energy costs this winter as part of a UK-wide scheme.

In his autumn statement, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said all households in Northern Ireland would receive an additional £200 payment, in recognition of the region’s dependence on home heating oil.

While consumers in the rest of the UK have already begun to receive support payments, there has been no decision about how and when they will be made in Northern Ireland.

In a blunt message to the DUP, O’Neill added: “We all want these issues to be resolved but, in the meantime, we’re elected to be here in this chamber to have people’s backs, to get the £600 out into their pockets. They are crying out for help. They need us to do our job. They elected us to do our job. So I call on you again – you should be ashamed of yourselves in this chamber today.

The public need our support – do your job, turn up.

Representing the DUP, MLA Gordon Lyons said: “This recall of the Assembly is nothing more than a farce.

“We know it is a stunt, the public know it is a stunt and the other parties know it is a stunt also.”

He claimed Sinn Fein was using the recall as a way to “distract” from claims made at an ongoing Special Criminal Court trial in Dublin linking the party to organised criminality.

He also said the levers to deliver cost-of-living support were in Westminster, not Stormont.

Referring to energy support payments, he added: “This was a scheme devised at Westminster, promised by Westminster and now needs to be delivered by Westminster.

“In the summertime, there was a way forward and a mechanism identified for delivery. Energy suppliers and the Utility Regulator worked hard to put that in place and at the last minute, the Government has started to consider alternative options.

“The time for dithering is over. They have the money, the systems and the capacity to deliver this and they need to get on with it.

“And that is key; there are things that we have the money, the power and the capacity to deliver and there are things which are outside our control.”

Speaking before the Assembly session began, Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie called on Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris to hold a summit to brief Stormont parties on the progress of negotiations over the protocol.

He said: “Today’s recall is gesture politics and it is borne out of frustration because nothing has happened over this past number of months.

“Through the whole month of November nothing happened and we are now into the first week of December and nothing has happened, and there is not likely to be anything happening.

We have squandered two months. It is looking like we will go into January with no plan to deal with the issues we now face.

“Political parties need to know what is going on and we are receiving absolutely no briefs.

“I am now calling on the Secretary of State to put a plan in place for early January, to instigate a summit for all of the parties. To get a brief from the UK Government, from the EU exactly where we are in regards to the protocol.”

On Tuesday evening, Heaton-Harris reaffirmed his intention to cut MLAs’ pay by 27.5%, but did not clarify when exactly the cut would come into effect.

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    Mute Joe Johnson
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    Dec 7th 2022, 8:31 AM

    DUP says No again and again. They should be thrown out and given no pay at all unless.

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    Mute Paul Duffy
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    Dec 7th 2022, 5:25 PM

    @Joe Johnson: so you were ok with SF blocking the executive forming for 3 years ? Surely they should be thrown out too …

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    Mute Phil Swan
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    Dec 7th 2022, 6:02 PM

    @Paul Duffy: the fact it can happen is the biggest joke. No matter the party or person, no work no pay and no seat. Oh you don’t like it and don’t want your elected seat anymore? OK, who was next in line? Let’s give it to them and see how that goes. They’d be in there like hot snots.

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    Mute Donal Desmond
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    Dec 7th 2022, 10:28 PM

    @Paul Duffy: SF blocked the Assembly due to a financial scandal involving the DUP. Wonder why you failed to mention that point.

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    Mute Disco Inferno
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    Dec 8th 2022, 12:31 AM

    @Donal Desmond: so what do the people and the institutions of Northern Ireland do in the mean time? I guarantee they were all still drawing down on their salary while all the time pointing fingers at each other

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    Mute Marcus Suridius
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    Dec 7th 2022, 8:12 AM

    It has to be changed that if one of the big two don’t go in then the alliance party can step in, madness that there’s still no sitting government up there.

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    Mute Richard Starling
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    Dec 7th 2022, 4:22 PM

    The DUP (principally Jeffrey Donaldson) will only go into government if they are in sole charge. THAT is dictatorship, not democracy. They should be disbanded.

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    Mute Ronan Horan
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    Dec 7th 2022, 9:10 AM

    The DUP should be renamed the No NO NO party

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    Mute Maurice Bourke
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    Dec 7th 2022, 4:18 PM

    @Ronan Horan:
    Dup is a suitable name for them. Doesn’t Understand Politics sums them up quite well.

    Joke stolen from smarter people than me.

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    Mute Tipper Irie
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    Dec 7th 2022, 5:58 PM

    @Ronan Horan: and SF for the three years they said no. There are two of them in it.

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    Mute Kevin Burke
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    Dec 7th 2022, 6:36 PM

    @Tipper Irie: the “both sides” argument is tired and played out. No surprise it’s being employed by anonymous accounts

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    Mute Eoghan Ryan
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    Dec 7th 2022, 9:05 PM

    @Tipper Irie: little bit disingenuous there lad, remind us all why the previous assembly collapsed and also remind us of the subsequent court findings???

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    Mute Jason Mcginn
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    Dec 7th 2022, 10:01 AM

    Cut off their pay.. they’ll be in quick enough.. Simple.

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    Mute Matt Rogers
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    Dec 7th 2022, 12:28 PM

    The real target for The DUP is The Belfast GFA. Their support of Brexit followed up by their opposition to The NI Protocol are a means to an end.
    In the 100 years history of NI The Unionists have never played ‘second fiddle’ (1st n 2nd Minister !!) to The Nationalists which would now be the situation If they allow The NI Assembly to sit.

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    Mute Tom Collins
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    Dec 7th 2022, 4:02 PM

    They will do this all day every day before they have a nationalist lead government

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    Mute Bat Collins
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    Dec 7th 2022, 5:39 PM

    Stop their salaries. It’s that simple. No work, no pay!

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    Mute Eamonn Byrne
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    Dec 7th 2022, 4:57 PM

    DUP are a disgrace to politics.

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    Mute camio55
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    Dec 7th 2022, 5:03 PM

    Again politicians reneging on their responsibilities to the people of NI. Over the past five short years SF and the DUP have used their sectarian muscle to play havoc with the assembly. The sooner these two parties are sidelined by the parties in the middle the better. They are post troubles monsters who do nothing for the general good of the people living in NI. They just rehash old arguments on the constitutional status of NI.

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    Mute Mark Dawson
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    Dec 7th 2022, 6:47 PM

    Always said it that the man from del monte is the only orange man in history to say yes to anything

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    Mute Paul Whitehead
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    Dec 7th 2022, 10:57 PM

    The DUP will never serve under a Sinn Fein First Minister. Even if the protocol was scrapped, they would find an excuse to prevent Michele taking her rightful democratic place. A but like Trump, the DUP love democracy until it kicked them in the bottom.

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    Mute Eamonn Reardon
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    Dec 8th 2022, 8:10 AM

    Maybe the politicians should not be paid until they ALL come to an agreement. After all the rest of us would not be paid until we actually start working!

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    Mute Ian Hoey
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    Dec 8th 2022, 5:13 PM

    And people down south think there could/should be a united Ireland, no chance.

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