Stormont vote mechanism reform ‘could be helpful’ to avoid handing DUP veto
Reform of a contentious Stormont voting mechanism could be "helpful" in addressing concerns about handing the DUP a veto over post-Brexit arrangements, the Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith has suggested.
It comes after Tánaiste Simon Coveney strongly ruled out prime minister Boris Johnson's proposal to give the Northern Ireland Assembly the power to sign-off on all-island regularity alignment.
Mr Smith said there were "many ways" to achieve the consent of the Assembly, which has not sat for almost three years, for the proposed post-Brexit regulatory system.
The petition of concern essentially allows a bloc of Assembly members from either the nationalist or the unionist community a veto on certain decisions, even if they represent a minority in the chamber.
Mr Smith is currently trying to reignite flagging efforts to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland.
Asked whether reforming the petition of concern as part of any deal to resurrect Stormont could help address concerns about the Brexit deal, he said: "That could be helpful. I've always said that I thought consent could be an important part of unlocking this Brexit conundrum."
However, Mr Coveney dismissed the suggestion that reforming the veto power would make a difference.
"We have concerns in relation to any concept that suggests one party in Northern Ireland, regardless of who they are, can veto or prevent contingency measures taking effect through a vote in the NI executive," he said.
"The idea that a minority of people could enforce a proposal on a majority of people indefinitely into the future in the context of the disruption of Brexit and mitigate against that isn't something we can support."
Mr Coveney also said the formal Brexit proposals put forward by Mr Johnson in a four-page letter this week, do not match what he saying in public that there will be no border checks.
"What people say needs to be matched by the proposals that people are putting forward," he said.
"Just because a British Prime Minister says something in the House of Commons doesn't mean that when you look at the proposals in detail that everything matches up because it doesn't," he told RTÉ's Today with Sean O'Rourke programme.
"So it's not simply just a question of saying it, it is a question of having a legally operable mechanism in a legal agreement and an international treaty to ensure that the commitments that are being made are being followed through on in a practical sense."
