Naomi Long: Nobody is losing sleep over the Northern Ireland Protocol

The Alliance leader made her comments to the Press Association news agency, as part of a wider pre-election interview.

During it, she criticised the DUP’s position of wanting to see the protocol axed before devolved government is resumed, saying: “Whatever our challenges, whatever the challenges of the protocol, it cannot be made better by not having a government here; all that does is make people’s lives harder.

“I think that is the last message that people want to hear from local politicians.

“No-one is going to be losing sleep over the protocol but people are genuinely losing sleep because they don’t know how they are going to pay their bills, they don’t know how they are going to feed their families.”

The Alliance leader said it is not sustainable to maintain a situation in the Assembly where MLAs are designated as unionist, nationalist or other.

“We would like to see the designations gone,” she said.

“I believe that fundamentally what it does is disenfranchises those of us who choose not to designate as unionist or nationalist. But it also creates mutual vetoes in the Assembly and the result of that is that, instead of being able to be encouraged to co-operate, it is actually in people’s interests to form these kind of vetoes and just refuse to do things.

“I think that by taking away the designations system you create an impetus for people to actually work across the chamber ...

“Many people in our community no longer view themselves simply through the lens of unionist or nationalist.”

Tributes paid to north Down loyalist councillor Jimmy Menagh – from Greens to TUV

Green Pastures church in Ballymena suffering from ‘governance issues’