Slim hopes of a miracle cure for Northern Ireland’s power-sharing paralysis

Stormont has been without a functioning government for 35 per cent of its existence

There is widespread anger that members of the Assembly can draw their salaries even when Stormont is not working

Northern Ireland deserves better than its broken politics. Many people are less worried about an Irish reunification referendum after Sinn Fein’s historic victory than the slim chances of getting power-sharing in Stormont up and running.

NHS waiting lists in Northern Ireland are the highest in the UK and healthcare has suffered from decades of underinvestment.

People routinely take out loans to pay for private healthcare to get operations to end their suffering.

The 18-month-old grandson of Doug Beattie, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, is among those who have died on a waiting list.

Nearly a third of Northern Irish consumers say they would struggle to deal with an unexpected £300 bill, while food and fuel prices continue to rise fast.

Sinn Fein’s triumph was not built on calls for border polls but a laserfocus on the soaring cost of living.

Little wonder there is widespread anger that members of the Assembly can draw their salaries even when Stormont is not working.

The Northern Ireland Assembly requires the largest nationalist and unionist party to enter into powersharing. This mandatory coalition is eternally fragile.

Since devolution 22 years ago, Stormont has been mothballed five times and without a functioning government for 35 per cent of its existence.

There was no Assembly in Northern Ireland for three years after Sinn Féin pulled out of the Executive in 2017 over a green energy scandal.

Efforts to reform it floundered on Democratic Unionist Party opposition to Sinn Fein’s demand for an Irish Language Act that would give Irish equal legal status to English.

In January 2020, the Assembly was restored on the basis of the New Decade, New Approach deal brokered by London and Dublin.

Last February, the DUP’S First Minister Paul Givan collapsed Stormont again by resigning in protest over the post-brexit Northern Ireland Protocol, which created the Irish Sea border.

Political leaders meet today for the first talks over a power-sharing agreement. Hopes of a deal are slim after the DUP warned it would not enter power-sharing without agreement that the protocol be removed or replaced.

The centrist and cross-community Alliance Party benefited from a surge of support from voters sick of the eternal deadlock the mandatory coalition creates.

While it can be part of the Executive, it cannot form a powersharing government because that can only be between the largest unionist and nationalist party. The Alliance is designated as “other”.

It wants reform that would allow for voluntary coalitions, which could, in theory, enable the DUP to enter into opposition.

Such a change would require negotiation and intervention from the UK and Ireland and a willingness for the two main parties to loosen their grip on power.

Questions will also be raised over whether Northern Ireland is ready for such “normal” politics after the painful decades of the Troubles.

But the status quo, and the paralysis it so often brings, is having a devastating impact on people’s lives in Northern Ireland.