Sinn Féin Vice-President Michelle O'Neill is now speaking to the media after meeting Tánaiste (Irish Deputy Prime Minister) Micheál Martin in Belfast.

She says there's a "fair degree of understanding" that the Northern Ireland Assembly will sit on Saturday to begin the process of restoring devolution.

Image source, Getty Images

Former Northern Ireland First Minister and DUP leader Dame Arlene Foster says she is "very pleased" to see a pathway back to devolution.

She tells BBC's Woman's Hour that Sir Jeffrey Donaldson made it clear from the outset his reason for collapsing the institutions.

Dame Arlene adds that, in her view, Sinn Féin collapsed Stormont in 2017 over the Irish language, but this was different to the DUP's collapse of the institutions in 2022 as the protocol issues can only be addressed by the government.

She says she hopes the deal is acceptable to most unionists.

"I don’t think Sir Jeffrey or anybody else could have foreseen this or would have wanted to have been out for such a long period of time," she says.

"But I think we should be positive today, we should celebrate the point that we are at today and we should see an administration up and running very, very shortly."

As we await the details of a new deal, what do people here want to see from NI politics?

Businessman Kieran Kennedy is the chair of Strabane Business Improvement Districts (BID) group.

Kennedy tells BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme a top priority should be to help small businesses in Northern Ireland.

"For too long small businesses have been forgotten here," he says.

"We have so many great small businesses in Northern Ireland that with a bit of help and support they could get on the ladder in terms of R&D and exports."

Kennedy says another urgent thing to address is the long-awaited upgrade of the A5, external to help improve connectivity.

Enda McClafferty
BBC News NI political editor

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson essentially had a free run yesterday to talk about his wins.

He knew that none of his political opponents could challenge him in any meaningful way because they didn’t have the details of the deal in front of them.

So, in a sense, Sir Jeffrey was in a good place - he was able to remain on the front foot throughout.

He was privy to the details, he was able to pick and choose the message that he wanted to deliver.

Whether or not that remains the case today, I think it’s going to be a challenge because there is one big inescapable question which he will struggle to answer despite his best efforts.

If he can't convince many of his MPs, MLAs and lords of the merits of this deal, how is he going to convince the wider unionist electorate?

Micheál Martin was then asked if he was concerned the government may have “over-promised” to the DUP on matters that would cause friction with the EU.

“The European Union haven’t been a party to the UK government talks, but my sense is that the [European] Commission’s main concern is the single market, not necessarily the transfer of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland," he says.

“My view is that the commission all along has been co-operative and constructive in endeavouring to get a resolution to all of these issues so that people can get about their daily lives in a less constrained way."

He is in Belfast today to meet Stormont's main parties and to discuss cross-border trade with Northern Ireland businesses.

Image source, KHALED DESOUKI/Getty Images

The tánaiste (the Republic of Ireland's deputy prime minister) has paid tribute to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson after the DUP leader secured his party’s support to return to Stormont, subject to UK legislation.

“I think he has opened the path to a functioning executive and assembly,” Micheál Martin tells the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme.

He says he had not seen the legislation linked to the DUP deal which the UK government is due to publish later.

But he adds the Irish government has “no issue with streamlining and making sure that there’s a seamless passage of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.

Former Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Bertie Ahern is hopeful the deal will go through.

He tells BBC NI’s Good Morning Ulster: “Jeffrey Donaldson has said it is not perfect - all my years working in EU politics I have never seen anything that’s perfect."

Ahern, who was an architect of the Good Friday Agreement during his time as Irish PM, says Sir Jeffrey’s main aim was to create a UK internal market and he believes he may have.

He adds that there may still be issues going forward it can be dealt with “when there is not the same tension”.

Image source, PA Media

Ahern also comments that from midnight last night “all goods that go into the UK from the Republic all have to be dealt with by declarations”.

“They are issues that the EU are very concentrated on… those issues had been suspended four or five times but are effective form this morning.”

Image source, Huw Evans Picture Agency

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson announced his party would be endorsing a deal with the UK government to alter the trading relationship between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The agreement means the party will also end a boycott of power-sharing institutions that has kept Northern Ireland without a devolved government for almost two years.

Donaldson said that, under the deal, there would be no checks on most goods crossing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, and that no goods staying in Northern Ireland would need checks or customs declarations.

He described it as a "significant change" to the current trading arrangements.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris called the DUP’s endorsement of the deal "a welcome and significant step" and said he believed “all the conditions are now in place for the [Northern Ireland] Assembly to return”.

He said all-party talks would continue in Northern Ireland on Tuesday afternoon and that the full deal would be published in Parliament today.

Read more here.

Image source, EPA

Hello and welcome to our live coverage as we await details of the deal that could bring power sharing back to Northern Ireland after almost two years.

The government is set to publish the deal in full today, and pass the legislation in Parliament tomorrow.

The DUP announced it had reached an agreement with the government in the early hours of Tuesday on post-Brexit trade agreements.

The party had been blocking the working of an assembly and executive in protest at trade arrangements after the UK left the EU.

Stay with us for all the latest developments and reaction.