Stormont crisis: Chris Heaton-Harris holding further talks with NI parties

Sinn Féin deputy leader Michelle O’Neill has said the party does not feel positive after talks with the Northern Ireland secretary aimed at restoring power sharing.

Chris Heaton-Harris is holding discussions with the five main Stormont parties at Hillsborough Castle.

Sinn Féin was the first party to arrive for a series of one-to-one meetings.

“There wasn’t anything that gave us any chink of light, if you want to describe it as that,” Ms O’Neill said.

“That being said, we still think there is an opportunity for the DUP to step up to the plate.

Monday’s meetings follow roundtable talks between the parties and the Northern Ireland secretary in December.

“We told the secretary of state that he has put money on the table so to get on with it and pay the workers,” Ms O’Neill said on Monday.

“I think the public watch on very frustrated and I share that frustration.”

The secretary of state has come under pressure to tackle the pay dispute in the absence of an executive, but he has argued it is a matter for local ministers to address.

Members of all five Northern Ireland teaching unions staged a protest at the gates of the castle.

An autism support group also protested outside the talks venue, as ministers arrived.

They represented families affected by special schools closing this week during the strike, and chanted to the DUP: “You’re paid, pay them.”

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) delegation, made up of leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Gavin Robinson and Emma Little-Pengelly, arrived in Hillsborough to shouts from protesters.

“Fair pay for teachers,” some yelled and one protester shouted: “Shame, shame, shame.”

Northern Ireland’s devolved government collapsed in February 2022 after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) withdrew in protest against post-Brexit trade checks between the region and Great Britain.

It believes the arrangements under the Northern Ireland Protocol diminish the region’s place within the UK internal market.

A new deal called the Windsor Framework was agreed in 2023 between the UK government and European Union aimed at addressing concerns.

But the DUP said this did not go far enough, and for months the party has been in talks with the government seeking further changes.

In December, Mr Heaton-Harris said those talks had “effectively concluded” and offered a £3.3bn financial package for Northern Ireland – dependent upon the Stormont institutions being restored.

Last week, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the public sector pay disputes in Northern Ireland could be resolved “rapidly” if the Stormont executive was restored.

He said “significant progress” had been made in talks with the DUP and there was “now a very good basis” to revive the power-sharing institutions.

He said people across Northern Ireland are becoming increasingly frustrated by the impasse.

The SDLP leader added: “This isn’t a game, what matters here is the people on the ground, the people on a health waiting list, these workers about to go out in the cold on Thursday, thousands of them, because they have been forced into that position”.

Alliance leader Naomi Long told BBC NI’s Good Morning Ulster programme pay issues need to be “divorced” from the current political impasse.

“Workers should not be used as leverage in the political arena,” she said.

Ms Long said Mr Heaton Harris should proceed with making decisions about public sector pay.

“If local politicians are not able to do that, the secretary of state has a duty to do it,” she said.

The industrial action also coincides with a legal deadline for restoring Stormont power-sharing.

If no executive is formed by Thursday, the Northern Ireland secretary falls under a legal duty to call an early assembly election.

But Mr Heaton-Harris has pushed back this deadline several times before and has indicated he may do so again.

He previously said he was “considering all options carefully” but was “not treating this date as a target”.