Councillor Mal O’Hara, Green Party leader has welcomed that a deal in principle has been reached by UK & EU on NI Protocol.

"It is welcome that a deal in principle on the Northern Ireland Protocol has been reached between the European Union and the United Kingdom. The power to negotiate any deal always rested between Westminster and Brussels. There will be much scrutiny of the deal in coming days, but ultimately, it will be for Westminster and the EU to ratify. Meanwhile the DUP’s wrong-headed approach has meant that we have had no functioning Government for a year. The people of Northern Ireland have been held to ransom for a deal that was outside their ability to influence."

"In that year, public services have continued to collapse, budgets have been overspent and people have been left to deal with the cost-of-greed crises with no support from our local Executive. Meanwhile, the climate crises looms towards us and there has been limited movement on enacting the Climate Bill which Green MLAs forced the Executive to bring forward."

"The DUP should move to end their blockade of the Assembly. People are in desperate need of support. Public services are barely holding on waiting for multi-year budgets, investment, and reform. The climate crises has not gone away and our limited window to act is closing. There is an opportunity to create a cleaner, greener, fairer Northern Ireland but we need local accountable politics to achieve that."

ENDS

Media contact Mal O’Hara 07540790663.