All-party talks aren't an indication a deal is closer say the DUP - as they call Government approach a 'total failure'

Yesterday, the DUP’s deputy leader Gavin Robinson said that even if all the issues the party had raised with the government were met – sustainable devolution couldn’t happen because of Stormont’s finances. The party is seeking an arrangement similar to Wales because it argues that the current model doesn’t fund Northern Ireland in line with its needs.

Mr Robinson said he put no store in the Secretary of State’s comments that talks were in their “final, final stages” and pointed to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s comments that the DUP would not be calendar led. He said the government should “fundamentally change their approach and their interest in these issues”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Joel Taggart, Mr Robinson added: "The government know what is required. We have indicated to them very clearly the issues that need to be resolved to respect Northern Ireland’s place within the UK internal market”.

In his weekly email the DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson will tell members that while some people were getting “over-excited” by the meeting, it is a step forward. On the Windsor Framework talks, he believes “more work is required to conclude that process if we are to have arrangements acceptable to unionists as well as nationalists”.

Gavin Robinson also told the BBC that if the government value devolution they will “repair the harm that they have caused. They will build on the significant work of the Windsor Framework to get the job done. Because for me the prize in Northern Ireland is great. For our public services and our community more generally, the prize is great.”

He continued: “What we have seen over the last number of months is a total failure of the government to seize that opportunity on resolving the issues of the Windsor Framework – and failure to seize the opportunity to recognise that without a significant change to the way Northern Ireland is funded – our public services are going to falter”.

Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie said DUP MLAs and MPs need to get behind Sir Jeffrey Donaldson so that he can lead the party back into Stormont with “political courage”.

The Upper Bann MLA said: “The DUP issues around the Windsor framework are well rehearsed, understood, and valid. However, keeping devolved government down is not going to fix the issues we face; it will lead to Northern Ireland being even more isolated as bigger geopolitical issues come to the fore. To that end I was plead with members of the DUP to get behind their leader and allow him to lead with political courage to take us back to a position where devolved government is providing for the people and the issues of the Windsor Framework can be challenged using the mechanisms they helped negotiate.”

On Monday’s talks Mr Beattie said: “The very fact that he has invited the 5 main political parties and not just those entitled to form an Executive means the talks are less likely to be around the restoration of the devolved institutions and more around the proposed ‘Plan B’”.

The Alliance Party’s Reform & Restoration spokesperson Andrew Muir MLA said his party is “ready and willing to get to work – we have been ready since day one and yet here we are, nearly two years on with the DUP still intent on punishing everyone in Northern Ireland”. Mr Muir added: “We will be making the case to the Secretary of State that Northern Ireland needs to be put on a long-term sustainable financial footing and funded in line with need as other devolved nations in the UK already are. We will also again be making this case alongside the need for reform to end the cycle of stop-go government."

Sinn Fein have called for the DUP to go to Monday’s meeting prepared and ready to go back into government. Conor Murphy said: “They have left us without a government here for almost two years now. The consequences of that have been very dire for our public services and to say to people they are not in any hurry to fix this, I think, is absolutely reprehensible”.