Stormont First Minister Michelle O’Neill has said she will “not be deterred” from doing her job by a DUP move to block her from taking part in public engagements.
Addressing the Stormont Assembly, the Sinn Féin vice president claimed the DUP was motivated by a “supremacist” approach to nationalists.
Her comments came after the DUP last week announced that deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly would no longer participate in joint engagements with Ms O’Neill and would not give the required permission for her to fulfil engagements on her own in the role of First Minister.
“At the core of it all is the DUP’s inability to comprehend a nationalist First Minister,” Ms O’Neill told the Assembly.
The unionist party’s move is in response to Ms O’Neill’s involvement in an allegedly unlawful protest against the Orange Order Drumcree parade in Portadown last month.
The First Minister and several of her party colleagues are being investigated by police for taking part in the protest on the Garvaghy Road that was staged to prevent the parade from proceeding through the predominantly nationalist area.
The DUP stopped short of withdrawing Ms Little-Pengelly from her role – a move that would have automatically forced Ms O’Neill from office.
Speculation is mounting that DUP MP Carla Lockhart is poised to quit the party due to the leadership’s decision not to collapse the powersharing administration in Belfast.
Ms Lockhart said the DUP stance “falls far short” of what she believes “the vast majority of unionists want”.
Delivering a personal statement in the Assembly on Monday, Ms O’Neill accused the DUP of “desperately trying to turn back the clock and to undermine democracy”.
She said the decision to block her attending engagements was “undemocratic, and arrogant, and also supremacist”.
“So I have a message for those sitting opposite me – the days of domination are over,” she told DUP MLAs.
“The days of treating others as second-class citizens are over. The days of telling nationalists to know their place are over and they are not coming back. I stand here today every bit as much as the First Minister as I was this time last week, and when I was whenever I took up this office on that historic day (in 2024).
“So you can play every petty political game and stunt that you wish, but you cannot and you will not thwart the democratic will of the people. I have a very clear and a very strong mandate from the people, and I will fulfil that every day.”
At a Stormont press conference shortly after her statement, Ms O’Neill added: “I’m not going to be deterred from doing my job.”
Earlier, DUP leader Gavin Robinson, speaking to reporters at Parliament Buildings, accused Ms O’Neill of “arrogance”.
But he insisted collapsing the Executive was not the right response to events in Portadown.
“It cannot be that every time a lawmaker in Northern Ireland breaks the law, that the answer is to bring down the institutions,” he said.
Mr Robinson said he was sorry that Ms Lockhart disagreed with the majority view inside his party.
“We are in fundamentally different places,” he added.
At the weekend, Mr Robinson’s party colleague Jonathan Buckley wrote an open letter to unionist political leaders in Northern Ireland, including his own, calling for them to engage in discussions to secure increased electoral co-operation ahead of next year’s scheduled Assembly election.
Ulster Unionist leader Jon Burrows has indicated a willingness to engage in the initiative but TUV leader Jim Allister has claimed the letter was motivated by DUP self-interest.
Withdrawing Ms Little-Pengelly from her post would automatically force Ms O’Neill from office because of the joint nature of the powersharing structures in Northern Ireland.
Such a step would effectively collapse the devolved administration in Belfast as the Executive could no longer meet to make significant decisions.
However, individual departmental ministers would remain in post for up to six months and the Northern Ireland Assembly could continue to sit.
The furore is playing out amid the customary political manoeuvring that takes place at Stormont ahead of an Assembly election.
A decision by the Parades Commission adjudication body to allow the Orange Order to parade down the Garvaghy Road for the first time in almost 30 years prompted a two-week stand-off at the site of what was a notorious parading flashpoint during the Troubles.
The parade was ultimately unable to take place because of significant numbers of protesters on the Garvaghy Road, leading Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant to overturn the commission’s decision and ban the procession. His decision was upheld by a High Court judge on Wednesday.
Under parading laws in Northern Ireland, protests must be notified to, and approved by, the Parades Commission.
Police investigating the unnotified Garvaghy Road protest, which was staged on the day the Drumcree parade was meant to proceed on September 27, have said invitations to attend interviews were sent to individuals “reasonably suspected of committing offences”.
The political dispute over Drumcree is unfolding at a time when Stormont is still without an agreed budget for the current, financial year.
The Executive parties are scheduled to have further talks with Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant later this week. Stormont ministers have refused to set a budget, insisting the level of funding on offer from the Treasury is not enough to adequately fund public service in Northern Ireland.
The Government contends that the funding on offer is sufficient and Sir Chris has accused devolved ministers of being financially irresponsible.
Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said she does not want to spend the final months of the current Assembly mandate “listening to the kind of soap opera and drama that’s going on in other political parties”.
“We need to get our act together, we need to get a budget agreed and we need to get down to business in the chamber that isn’t about who we’re going to vote out this week, but that is about what we’re going to deliver for the people who elected us,” she told reporters at Stormont.
“I think people, certainly when I’ve been chatting to people over the last few weeks, they are weary of all of this.
“What they want to see is progress, not drama.”
SDLP leader Claire Hanna said it was time for the Stormont parties to set a budget. The SDLP is the official opposition party in the Assembly.
“I’m glad that Stormont hasn’t collapsed but, we’ve been saying for a while, it is time for this place not just to exist, but to actually use the power that it has – it’s not currently doing that,” said Ma Hanna.
“The Executive parties have an opportunity later this week to agree a budget.
“We will always support their efforts to get more funding, but that doesn’t mean they can’t give certainty to people waiting for a pay deal and to public services in general.”