Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am sure it is a disappointment to the Taoiseach that he is likely, which word I underscore, to leave office with a political vacuum in Northern Ireland on foot of the post-election failure to form an Executive. Efforts to form an Executive are now in abeyance until after the UK general election and a new deadline of 29 June, the fourth such deadline, has now been set. The Taoiseach has asserted that a return to direct rule cannot be contemplated, which sounds like the strong rhetoric that there cannot be a Border. That is well and good, but what does the Taoiseach see happening in the event that no Executive is formed on the expiration of the three-week gap following the conclusion of the UK general election and the reaching of the fourth and, we are told, final deadline for the formation of such an Executive? What is the position? Given the Taoiseach's assertion that direct rule cannot be contemplated, what, then, is contemplated?

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