Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In the Taoiseach's first response he said that he and Theresa May affirmed their determination to see the institutions in the North back up and running. I put it to him directly that there is in fact no determination from the British Government to achieve that outcome. In fact, it has acted to frustrate that very course of action. We achieved an agreement or accommodation last February and when the DUP ran away from that there was not a word nor a scintilla of pressure or incentivisation to return to the institutions from the British Government. The British Government, which the Taoiseach says has a firm determination to achieve fully functioning power sharing, is the same British Government that looks the other way as the DUP involves itself in scandal and in the waste of public money through the renewable heat incentive, RHI, scheme and, worse still, openly and brazenly refuses and faces down the rights of sections of Northern society. That is the fact of it. The British Government which the Taoiseach says affirms the commitment to re-establishing power sharing is, in fact, a British Government which has given safe shelter to the DUP at Westminster, far away from the halls of Stormont and away from any form of accountability. That is the truth.

Whereas I welcome the fact that the intergovernmental conference was convened in July - that was a necessary first step - I am now concerned that the foot has come off the pedal. We need a thoughtful map back to real, genuine power sharing and that has to mean the vindication and realisation of rights, be they language rights, marriage rights or the right to inquest. Families have waited decades for that simple, democratic, fundamental right. It is utterly shocking. I have said so to Theresa May and yet she looks the other way and stalls. I read no urgency, much less an affirmed determination, on the part of the Tory Government to re-establishing power sharing.

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