Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will travel to Belfast for talks with political leaders on Wednesday after calling out Westminster’s “reluctance” to involve Dublin in work to end months of political crisis in Northern Ireland.
Mr Varadkar will use meetings with the leadership of Sinn Féin, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), Alliance Party and SDLP to push the “pressing need” to get Stormont institutions in place again.
The Taoiseach is also likely to be asked to elaborate on remarks he gave to the Financial Times newspaper on Tuesday, where he said there was a “reluctance” in Downing Street to work in a “hand in glove” manner and to “apply both pressure and support” in a co-ordinated fashion.
Despite a noticeable thaw in relations between Dublin and London since prime minister Rishi Sunak came to power, Mr Varadkar’s remarks are thought to be directly addressed to the stance of the current administration, rather than solely being applicable to the high-stakes brinkmanship often engaged in by Boris Johnson over Northern Ireland and the protocol during his time as prime minister.
Government sources in Dublin said that relations had improved with Mr Sunak’s government but still fell short of the high points of Anglo-Irish relations on Northern Ireland in the 1990s and 2000s, with no joint strategy on dealing with political parties or wider approaches.
While the agreement of the so-called Windsor Framework between London and Brussels marked a significant departure from the recent fractious relationship over post-Brexit trading arrangements, there continues to be difficulties between Dublin and London over other elements of east-west relations. Most noticeably, the UK’s Legacy Bill is a bone of contention which the Irish Government said would permanently close off access to existing mechanisms for dealing with the legacy of the Troubles.
In a statement released before his trip to Belfast, the Government said the Taoiseach will meet Michelle O’Neill, Jeffrey Donaldson, Naomi Long, Doug Beattie and Matthew O’Toole, and will “reiterate the pressing need to get the Stormont institutions in place again without delay”.
He will also conduct a number of civic and business engagements with Linfield Football Club, the GAA Ulster Council, the Federation of Small Businesses and Women in Business.
Mr Varadkar told the FT that his conversations with the UK government and local parties still led him to hope that the Stormont Executive could be revived this autumn. But he acknowledged: “It is more hope than expectation at this stage, to be frank.
“If we don’t seize this window of opportunity in the next couple of months, talk will turn both in Belfast and in London to the next Westminster elections and it might be after that before we can get things going again.”
Northern Ireland, which is mired in a deepening financial crisis, is hosting a US investment conference between September 12th to September 13th, and a US trade mission on October 24th. Both are intended to highlight the unique dual access to both the European Union and UK markets the region enjoys despite Brexit. Doug Beattie, leader of the UUP, last week called for the investment conference to be delayed and merged with the October trade mission, telling the BBC there was a “better chance” of Stormont being revived by then.
