Northern Ireland secretary meets party leaders and increases pressure on DUP to drop power-sharing boycott
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    2·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    UK ministers have offered Northern Ireland a financial package that they say is worth £2.5bn on condition that the Stormont executive is revived.

    Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, made the offer at a roundtable meeting of party leaders on Monday against a backdrop of political deadlock, budget overruns and crumbling public services.

    The move will increase pressure on the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) to abandon a boycott of power-sharing that has paralysed the Stormont executive and assembly amid a mounting fiscal crisis.

    The package would include a new funding formula for public services and a lump sum to settle pay claims that have led to industrial action by education, health and transport workers.

    The Ulster Unionist party leader, Doug Beattie, predicted that talks between the government and the DUP would continue into next year, leaving the secretary of state and civil servants to run the region on a form of autopilot.

    The DUP collapsed Stormont in protest at checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain that it said undermined the region’s position in the UK.

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