Alliance requests more Assembly sittings to get Executive work done

12.33.00pm GMT Tue 18th Nov 2008

The Alliance Party has asked for additional sittings of the Assembly to work on the expected business from the Executive.

Alliance Leader David Ford has welcomed the statement of progress made towards breaking the 152-day Stormont standoff and has said that Alliance has request extra Assembly sittings to deal with important work.

Mr Ford's comments come as Sinn Féin and the DUP announced that Executive meetings would resume on Thursday. Alliance has taken their request for extra Assembly sittings to the Speaker and to today's Business Committee.

David Ford said: "I welcome any progress made towards breaking the deadlock. The Executive must now demonstrate to the public that they are going to make politics work over a sustained period of time.

"Given the backlog of work that needs to be done by the Executive, Alliance has requested that the Assembly hold more sittings in the coming months.

"The people of Northern Ireland are fed up with the sight of politicians not tackling the important issues that impact on their everyday lives. Blame is being cast on all of us.

"Now that the Executive appears to be working, we want extra sitting days in the Assembly to deal with business that the Executive is due to send us.

"Peter Robinson has only had a couple of weeks of a working Executive since he took over as First Minister. He and Martin McGuinness need to demonstrate to the public that they can make Northern Ireland work. Our proposals give the Executive the chance to prove that they are serious about making Stormont work and we hope they take this opportunity.

"The proof of this deadlock being broken is not simply an Executive meeting on Thursday. We need to see a sustained period of work from them to meet the public's real needs in this current financial climate."

Notes:

Alliance has written to the Speaker to request extra Assembly sittings. This could take the form of:

a third plenary session each week;

postponement of the Christmas recess until 20th December; or

plenary sessions to be held in the week beginning 5th January 2009.