Taoiseach Leo Varakdar has said he hopes the Stormont Executive can be restored early in the new year ahead of a deadline for calling new Assembly elections.
Mr Varadkar also said that he believed MLAs should should come back under current rules with any reform of the powersharing institutions negotiated ahead of the next Assembly election.
Talks between Britain's Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and political leaders in Northern Ireland broke up on Tuesday without agreement on a restoration of the institutions, despite a new improved offer of a £3.3 billion (€3.9 billion) financial package to stabilise finances in the region.
Mr Heaton-Harris also said that substantive talks with the DUP over its concerns on post-Brexit trading arrangements have concluded, although Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has insisted the negotiations will continue.
The powersharing institutions have been collapsed for almost two years as the DUP seeks further legislative assurances from the UK government of Northern Ireland’s trading position within the UK.
Under current rules Mr Heaton-Harris is obliged to call new Assembly elections on January 18th if the powersharing Assembly has not returned.
Mr Varadkar said: “What we would like to see is the Assembly, the Executive, established under the existing rules with Michelle O’Neill as First Minister and the Deputy First Minister from the DUP, and then if there is going to be any change of rules, well then they should be negotiated by the two governments and the main parties and put into place in advance of the next Assembly elections.”
Mr Varadkar said the UK government “worked really hard” to get the DUP to commit to returning to the Executive.
He said: “The Secretary of State will have to make a decision sometime around the middle of January as to whether or not to call elections or to further defer the elections.
“So I think that is a deadline that exists in law.
“And we’ll be working hard in the new year to avoid the Secretary of State having to make that decision.
“Because, you know, neither deferring elections yet again or calling new elections is really going to change anything.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to get things over the line in the new year, have a new Executive and Assembly up and running, help it to be a success and then begin conversations around what the rules might look like for the subsequent Assembly elections.”
The Northern Ireland Secretary has also faced calls to release funding to settle public sector pay claims in Northern Ireland, with multiple unions planning widespread strike action on January 18th.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said it is now clear that negotiations on the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Windsor Framework over Northern Ireland’s place within the UK internal market are over.
“So it’s over to the DUP and Jeffrey Donaldson, who, by the way, himself acknowledged some days ago, a week ago, that the tipping point had arrived, that it was now a moment for a decision, that we have this window – and we are simply asking the DUP to step through that window now, make that right decision,” she told RTÉ.
She added: “Because public sector workers will strike again on Friday.
“They’re looking for fair pay, pay parity.
“They’re entitled to it. The money is on the table.
“It’s unconscionable that we go into Christmas and beyond and leave those workers and others in the lurch.”
Party colleague Conor Murphy told the BBC that the new financial package on offer to a returning Stormont executive was only a “marginal improvement” on a previous offer which had been criticised by Northern Ireland parties last week.
He said: “There are some improvements but there is more work to be done in terms of improving it.
“That, as we have always argued, is better done from within an Executive where you have a First and a Deputy First Minister and ministers all on the same script talking directly to Whitehall rather than going through a conduit of the Secretary of State.
“We have never said that holding out for this is something which should keep an Executive down.”
Mr Murphy also said he would be surprised if the UK Government was not keeping the EU informed of any potential changes to the workings of the Windsor Framework.
