Stormont: Sinn Féin bid to recall assembly successful

The Stormont assembly is due to meet on Wednesday after a Sinn Féin recall petition was successful.

Speaker Alex Maskey confirmed that 30 signatures had been received - the number required for a petition to succeed.

He said the assembly was being recalled to elect his successor and appoint first and deputy first ministers.

It comes ahead of a legal deadline to restore the executive by Thursday before fresh elections are required.

There have been six recalls of the assembly since May 2022. Every time there has been a vote to elect a speaker, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has blocked the move.

The party's veto, which is unlikely to change, means no other assembly business can take place.

The latest legal deadline for the assembly to be restored coincides with a mass strike involving thousands of public sector workers calling for better pay and conditions.

In a letter to MLAs, Mr Maskey said he would be meeting party whips on Tuesday to discuss arrangements for debates around the motion.

The motion "endorses the demand for fair pay settlements for public sector workers; urges the DUP to respect the democratic outcome of the May 2022 Assembly election; and emphasises the pressing need to urgently reinstate the Executive to tackle the unprecedented challenges confronting citizens and public services" particularly the immediate matter of public sector pay".

Speaking following a meeting with Northern Ireland secretary, Sinn Féin's deputy leader Michelle O'Neill said her party made it clear to NI secretary Chris Heaton-Harris that he should divorce paying public sector workers from "the ongoing political stalemate".

"The DUP's actions and inaction to restore the executive are punishing the public," she said.

"We find ourselves in a scenario where the politics is stagnant and the money that is there to pay the public sector workers is hanging in the balance.

"We made sure he was very clear of our view, which is that money should be paid and he should absolutely divorce the two things."

The DUP has been blocking the restoration of Stormont's power-sharing institutions since 2022 in protest against post-Brexit trade checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

It believes the arrangements under the Northern Ireland Protocol diminish the region's place within the UK internal market.

A new deal, called the Windsor Framework, aimed at addressing those concerns was agreed in February 2023 between the government and European Union.

But the DUP said this did not go far enough, and for months the party has been in talks with the government seeking further changes.

In December, Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris said those talks had "effectively concluded" and offered a £3.3bn financial package for Northern Ireland if the Stormont institutions are restored.

That financial package includes almost £600m to solve the pay disputes at the heart of the public sector strikes.

If no executive is formed by Thursday, the Northern Ireland secretary is under a legal duty to call an early assembly election.

However, Mr Heaton-Harris has pushed this deadline back several times before and has indicated he may do so again.

In the last assembly election in May 2022, Sinn Féin became the largest party at Stormont for the first time, pushing the DUP into second place.

But Stormont's structures governing power-sharing between unionists and nationalists mean an executive cannot be restored without the support of both parties.