'All eyes' on Northern Ireland: Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald calls for Stormont restoration
Time is of the essence to resurrect the Stormont Assembly and seize economic opportunities, the Sinn Féin president has said.
Mary Lou McDonald was speaking as the DUP continues to consider a deal struck between the UK and EU to address unionist concerns around Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Prime Minister has said he is giving the party "time and space" to consider the Windsor Framework, which is hoped will restore power sharing to Stormont after a year-long absence.
Speaking on Wednesday afternoon, Ms McDonald said: "We've been meeting today with our team of MLAs because our preparations are now active for a return of the assembly and a return of the executive."
She continued: "It think a great tribute should be paid to the people and to the electorate who have been incredibly patient and I think at times incredibly frustrated with the entire political process.
"We need government and we need it now."
She added: "We're very very anxious to get back to work, none more so than Michelle O'Neill and we await and look forward to the time when she will lead the executive as a First Minister."
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's party has been refusing to take part in devolved government for the last year in protest against the protocol.
However a key part of Rishi Sunak's new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland has come under criticism from the party's MP Sammy Wilson.
He lashed out at the Stormont brake, the mechanism by which the Northern Ireland Assembly can reject changes to EU goods rules. However Ms McDonald said : "All eyes will be on the north of Ireland, and the question it seems to us, for people in politics is, what do you want the world to see?
"Do you want them to see a vista of opportunity and positivity or not.
"We want these opportunities for every community and all of our people and we hope that our colleagues from other parties are in that same state of mind."
Vice President Michelle O'Neill also echoed what the Prime Minister said yesterday saying that the Windsor Framework offered great opportunities for Northern Ireland.
The DUP, said "the only reason Sinn Fein or any other party in Northern Ireland is offering views on the Windsor Framework is because of the determination and action of the Democratic Unionist Party."
"It is notable that all of those who have been quick to welcome the Framework without significant scrutiny are the same parties who told us that the protocol could never be re-opened and that the European Union would never agree to fresh negotiations," East Antrim MLA Gordon Lyons said.
"Michelle O’Neill and her fellow travellers should apologise for urging the EU to 'rigorously implement' the NI Protocol. Sinn Fein was so blinded by anti-DUP sentiment they couldn’t see a bad deal. "Sinn Fein are welcoming 'economic opportunities' presented by these proposals whilst ignoring their determination to rigorously implement the economic harm of the Protocol.
"We hear yet again about the need to ensure there is no hard border, except of course when it comes to Sinn Fein’s own finances where they’re more than happy to erect one inside their own organisation.
"We will take time to fully scrutinise both the political and legal texts to assess whether this Framework meets our seven tests and whether it restores Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom. The intention behind the efforts to bring forward this framework however has been to resolve problems which many people denied even existed.”
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