Professor Imelda Maher:

To me, if a question of legitimacy arises because of a failure to attend by one party representing one community in Northern Ireland, then that is exactly the circumstance where the Good Friday Agreement should be invoked and the various arrangements and committees activated. I know they do not function particularly well and we are in a difficult phase, but that would be my first port of call should such a situation arise. It has been called "consent". If this is relevant in the Northern Irish context, reframing "consent" as a "review" would be a good idea. It is always a good idea to review new arrangements and ask if and how something is working. If the process is called a review, then it is not an either-or but a tweak. That question of whether it will it be possible to tweak this arrangement has not yet been put on the table. That is how I would like to see that debate go.