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The institutions of the Stormont Assembly are “fundamentally unstable” and need to be reformed to ensure good and stable government, Alliance leader Naomi Long has warned.
She also challenged Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris over “maintaining the hiatus” after 16 months without fully functioning devolved government in Northern Ireland.
The Assembly remains effectively collapsed amid DUP protest action, with Sir Jeffrey Donaldson saying his party will not re-enter devolved government until the UK Government acts on unionist concerns over the Brexit settlement.
The latest instability comes after a three-year Assembly collapse following the resignation of former Sinn Fein deputy first minister Martin McGuinness in 2017.
Giving evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Ms Long said it was frustrating and disappointing that 25 years after the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement Stormont was “increasingly unstable”.
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She said that while it was possible for Stormont to govern when it was sitting, there were “fundamental weaknesses and instabilities in the foundations of the institutions”.
Ms Long referred to Sinn Fein and the DUP as the largest parties having “disproportionate control over what happens within the Executive”.
The former justice minister said ministers from smaller parties had to negotiate with the bigger parties to get anything through, but those parties did not have to negotiate or compromise with smaller parties.
“There is a disparity in terms of power and there is also the ability for either of those two parties to simply walk away if they wish to do so … and that’s a part that no other party has,” she told MPs.
As time goes on, the implications of continued failure to restore the Executive become more and more serious
Alliance leader Naomi Long
“I think that that disparity in terms of the power dynamics makes it very difficult to have true collectivity. I think that there are structural things that we can change that are fairly straightforward but I think there is a more fundamental change that needs to be made.”
Ms Long said reform of the Assembly was not a precondition for her party to go back in, but said it was needed for good and stable government.
She said the longer Northern Ireland went without devolved government, the worse the situation would get.
The warning comes as Stormont departments are run by civil servants in the absence of ministers, and have said they need hundreds of millions of pounds in extra funding to maintain public services at their current level.
“We’re not saying it’s a red line to go back into government but we are saying that it is a red line for government if they want stable institutions,” Ms Long said.
There comes a point when we ask how many complex arrangements will the Secretary of State consider to maintain the hiatus before he considers relatively simple proposals to reform the institutions and enable good government?
Alliance leader Naomi Long
“I see no reason why preparatory work around form cannot go hand in hand with the work to restore the Executive and Assembly under its current format.
“I also think that as time goes on, the implications of continued failure to restore the Executive become more and more serious.
“By November this year, we will be in a crisis that is probably only in this year, and possibly in the next three are irrecoverable and that gets worse every passing month.
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“There comes a point when we ask how many complex arrangements will the Secretary of State consider to maintain the hiatus before he considers relatively simple proposals to reform the institutions and enable good government?
“And I think we are now at a tipping point in that so we’re not making it a precondition but I do think that if we want to have good and stable government, it has to be part of the mix in terms of going back into the Executive and Assembly for all of the parties sakes.”
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