Shadow NI Assembly plan is dismissed

Sinn Fein’s Stormont leader has said her party has no interest in a “Mickey Mouse” shadow Assembly to scrutinise decisions taken in Westminster.

Michelle O’neill said the proposal being considered by the UK government would deliver nothing and instead represent an abandonment of the terms of the Good Friday peace agreement.

In the ongoing absence of devolution, the Democratic Unionists have voiced support for a form of shadow Assembly that would give locally elected politicians a role in scrutinising decisions taken in Westminster.

The Alliance party has also proposed handing MLAS a role in examining the government’s handling of the region’s affairs while the powersharing crisis limps on. Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley is examining the halfway house proposal as a potential means to govern the region on an interim basis. Mrs O’neill has dismissed the notion.

“I think we would be better focusing our efforts on where they should be, which is actually getting the institutions up and running again,” she said. “Any attempt to scramble together some sort of ‘Assembly light’, a scrutiny role is not the direction.”