Cutting MLA pay and delaying energy payments won't bring back Stormont says DUP's Diane Dodds

Diane Dodds reasoned that the NI Assembly and Executive is not functioning is because of the Protocol imposed by his Government.

Mrs Dodds said: “The Secretary of State is gravely mistaken if he thinks adjusting MLA pay and erecting delays to energy payments will lead to a restoration of devolution.

“There is no solid basis for an Executive and Assembly until the Protocol is replaced with arrangements that restore NI’s place in the UK internal market and our constitutional arrangements are respected.

“The Government and the EU have been aware of our consistent position regarding the sustainability of Stormont since February 2021. Successive Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State have squandered that time rather than addressing the problem.

“For those who have forgotten, political progress in NI was hard won and is built on the support of unionists and nationalists. Not one unionist MLA supports the Protocol. The idea that one section of our people will dominate the other and ignore unionists can never produce durable or balanced outcomes.”

TUV leader Jim Allister commented: “I take no issue with the reduction in salary, but I do strongly take issue with the lamentable failure of His Majesty’s Government to restore Northern Ireland’s position wholly within the United Kingdom.”

Sinn Fein MLA Caoimhe Archibald blamed the DUP for the delay in energy payments: “People here will not receive the £600 energy support they are entitled to before Christmas because the DUP have blocked an Executive being formed.

“Sinn Fein is ready to form an Executive today, to work together with all parties, and get the energy payment to families who need it right now.”

Alliance leader Naomi Long said that she supported the pay cut on the basis “we can't be paid for what we aren't doing”.

She added however that Chris Heaton-Harris must share responsibility for NI’s state of political affairs.

In a tweet to the Secretary of State she said: “Brexit, Boris, and the fall-out from both are very much your mess. You supported them. You could reform the GFA, so those who want to work can, but you haven't.”