Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I welcome the Taoiseach's positive disposition, but it must be asked why parties have not adhered to successive deadlines. The Taoiseach stated in the House:

The Assembly is expected to meet to nominate the First and Deputy First Minister on 24 November. This has always been a key date for the Governments and it remains so. All going well, we will have a first Minister and Deputy First Minister for the first time in four years.

There is a view that there was more focus on the date than on content and that the threshold was constantly lowered along the way. The more the threshold was lowered, the less unequivocal were the statements from two of the parties involved. Even the requirement in the legislation calling for the nomination of First and Deputy First Minister was changed by the Secretary of State in the House of Commons to merely their indication. Even that was not subscribed to. Why should the parties keep deadlines? The quotation I gave was the same briefing I got in private and in public to the effect this was the date and there was no going beyond it. They were required to comply or else plan B would be put into effect. None of this was done. We still do not have an announcement on Sinn Féin's preparedness to sign up to policing. Whereas the Taoiseach has just said he accepts in this particular instance that media interviews are a substitute for an unequivocal commitment in the Chamber of the Assembly, which is somewhat unusual — I accept he is dealing with unusual circumstances — he enters the caveat that this was of course provided policing was subscribed to. We still do not have that, and neither has an announcement been tabled for an Ard-Fheis. It is immensely difficult to know where exactly we stand. As the leader of the SDLP said, it is about time Sinn Féin and the DUP synchronised their U-turns. Until that happens we cannot be sure where the St. Andrews process is going.

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