Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“It is clear from Arlene Foster’s comments last night that the DUP are preparing to resume business as usual with Sinn Fein in spite of the fact that just weeks ago she described them as “inextricably linked” to the IRA, a terror group which recently shot a man in the streets of our capital city. It seems murder no longer matters. At first it was ministers out till a resolution was obtained. Now, it is mere unspecified “progress”. Clearly, an obliging panel report is seen as a convenient fig leaf for the DUP’s next climb-down.
“There will be some who will wonder if there is a connection between this decision and the exposure this week of DUP’s yo-yo Ministers being paid for the days they served in office. Now that they have been embarrassed into reimbursing the public purse and one of them has been exposed as using a Ministerial car while not a Minister it seems they have decided that they need to get back into the Executive in order to justify keeping their cars and pay!
“Regardless of what the independent panel says next week it is clear that the IRA murdered Kevin McGuigan. In my meeting with the Chief Constable earlier this week he made it clear that the PSNI stand by their assessment that the Provisionals where behind the murder and that the terrorist organisation retains a command structure.
“But that, it seems, is secondary to the DUP when it comes to their desire to cling on to Ministerial office.
“The farce of hokey-cokey Ministers was never going to wash with the public. They could see that the DUP were merely keeping their partnership with Sinn Fein/IRA alive by this tactic from the start but with each resignation and reappointment the strategy became even more transparent. It could even have been described as comical were the issues not no serious.
“If DUP Ministers where resigning on a point of principle they would not have permitted themselves to be reappointed. It was pure opportunism to buy time and was seen as such.
“Yesterday TUV published a plan which outlined two alternatives to the failure of devolution to date in Northern Ireland. Either one of these would permit for a form of devolution which wouldn’t be held to ransom by IRA violence. The current system is held in utter contempt. It is time to leave it behind and move on to something that works.”