Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The North of Ireland is being held hostage to turbulence in the British political structure. The recent Stormont assembly election has, unfortunately, returned Brexit to the political agenda through a row in respect of the Northern Ireland protocol. This comes against a backdrop of the protocol being critical to post-Brexit continuity, stability and security of business on the island of Ireland. It is the mechanism agreed between the EU and the UK to protect the all-Ireland economy, the Good Friday Agreement and the integrity of the EU Single Market. Its unique arrangements are designed to avoid a physical border on the island of Ireland. It forms part of the withdrawal agreement and, as it has been ratified by the EU and the UK, it is a legally binding international treaty.

The protocol applies exclusively to the island of Ireland and came into force in January 2021. As per the withdrawal agreement, the EU and the UK established a joint committee with responsibility for its overall implementation and application. It is jointly chaired by Maroš Šefčovič, Vice-President of the European Commission, and the minister of state at the Cabinet Office.

All in all, this has thrown the delicate quadrangular relationship between Brussels, London, Dublin and Belfast into disarray. Uncertainty and apprehension about the unravelling of the arrangement and what it will mean for the future of Northern Ireland is everywhere. The most pressing question in Belfast is rightly in respect of the restoration of the power-sharing institutions. The function or otherwise of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive has been firmly linked to the protocol part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement by the DUP, which blocked the appointment of a speaker in the absence of decisive action on the issue by the UK Government. The clock is now ticking on a six-month deadline, after which the entire edifice will collapse and, in theory, a general election must be called. The general expectation is that it will not be until we reach the business end of this deadline in the autumn that significant progress might happen, although it is hoped that it will not take that long.

That said, in the wake of the announcement by Liz Truss on Tuesday that London intends to legislate to scrap parts of the protocol unilaterally, there has been a softening of language from the DUP, which may provide the landing zone, to use the new phrase du jour, needed for at least a partial solution. It is notable that when he was interviewed on BBC Radio Ulster last week, the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson called for decisive action, which was cited as the prerequisite for re-entering the political institutions. In full, however, he emphasised the need to first see the detail of the legislation. That points towards the possibility of a staggered solution that would permit the election of a speaker and, therefore, the restoration of the assembly. This would be only the starting point, however. The North would still be without a full and functioning Executive and there is much to be done to calm tensions and repair the relationship, political and otherwise, damaged by this crisis, as well as to address the reality that a substantial section of unionism feels alienated and that its identity has been undermined by the protocol. So far, so febrile, yet the likely next step will be "unspectacular and rather familiar at this point", according to Katy Hayward, professor of political sociology at Queens University Belfast.

Throughout the Brexit debacle, the consistent cry from business has been for clarity. There is an appetite for what would effectively be a stock-taking exercise by the technical teams from the UK and the EU to establish exactly where things stand.

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