Varadkar: Stormont cannot be 'business as usual'
- Published
Mr Varadkar said he would like to see changes to the petition of concern mechanism if Stormont returns
Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Leo Varadkar has said any restoration of Stormont should not be a return to business as usual.
Speaking in the Dáil (house of parliament) Mr Varadkar said he would like changes to the petition of concern mechanism.
He said the petition had been used to block matters which it was never intended, like marriage equality.
He was responding to a question from the Green Party leader Eamon Ryan.
Mr Varadkar also criticised MLAs being asked to designate themselves as unionist, nationalist or other.
The taoiseach said he believed people found the term 'other' pejorative because it "certainly doesn't describe that growing identity in Northern Ireland, that growing centre ground who see themselves as both British and Irish".
Mr Varadkar said it was a "flaw" that those who designated as 'other' were discounted and reduced to nothing in the way Stormont works.
But he added that any change had to be agreed by the big as well as small parties in Northern Ireland.
- Published15 October 2019
