Mr. Mark Durkan:

The phrase "parallel consent" was invented by Dennis Haughey of the SDLP negotiating team. It was essentially to describe what the rule was for sufficient consensus in the talks. It meant that it had to be supported by 50% by parties with the support of more than 50% of people, including more than 50% of nationalists and more than 50% of unionists.

That was called parallel consent. The joint election of First Ministers was the only part in the agreement where parallel consent was an absolute requirement and that was disposed of at St. Andrew's at the behest of the DUP which now quotes parallel consent as though it is key thing for everything in the Good Friday Agreement. Parallel consent was only named for the one decision, which was the joint election. We should go back to joint election but it should not rest on parallel consent alone.