Call for direct-rule Ministers if talks fail

THE UK Government should move promptly to appoint direct rule Ministers in Northern Ireland if a final attempt at brokering a deal to restore devolution fails, Arlene Foster has said.

The Democratic Unionist leader said a short timeframe should be set for renewed negotiations between her party and Sinn Fein.

In her New Year message, Mrs Foster also rejected suggestions that the talks venue should be shifted outside of Northern Ireland to a hothouse format in England.

The former Stormont First Minister said the continued absence of a government in the region was “unacceptable and simply unsustainable”.

Blaming Sinn Fein for the failure to re-establish a devolved executive, she also accused her erstwhile partners in government of refusing to engage in renewed talks.

“Recent rounds of talks have been bedevilled by the setting of pre-conditions by Sinn Fein,” Mrs Foster claimed.

“Let us re-enter talks with one shared pre-condition – that we will redouble our efforts to restore devolution and start taking the decisions that the people of Northern Ireland so desperately need.

“Let’s set ourselves a short timeframe. And let’s do it here at home rather than in some fancy English stately home.”

It is almost a year since Northern Ireland had a properly function administration.

The power-sharing institutions collapsed last January amid a row over a botched green energy scheme.