UK offers a big financial package if Northern Ireland politicians revive their suspended government

LONDON (AP) — The British government said Tuesday it will give Northern Ireland 3.3 billion pounds ($4.2 billion) to ease a budget crisis if stubborn lawmakers stop boycotting the suspended power-sharing Belfast government.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said the financial package was a final offer and urged the holdout Democratic Unionist Party to get back to governing.

“It is now the time for decisions to be made,” he said after meeting leaders of Northern Ireland’s main parties at Hillsborough Castle outside Belfast.

The semi-autonomous government has been on ice for almost two years since the DUP, the main British unionist party, walked out to protest post-Brexit trade rules. That left Northern Ireland’s 1.9 million people without a functioning administration to make key decisions as the cost of living soared and backlogs strained the creaking public health system.

Under power-sharing rules established by Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord, the main British unionist and Irish nationalist parties must govern together.

Protracted negotiations failed to persuade the DUP to return to government alongside the Irish nationalists of Sinn Fein, but there have been signs of movement in the political stalemate as a deadline approaches next month. If there is no Belfast government by Jan. 18, a new election must be held in Northern Ireland.

The money on offer from the U.K. government would go toward stabilizing Northern Ireland’s public finances and patching holes in health care and other sectors that have worsened during almost two years without a government.

“It is disappointing that there will not be a new executive up and running to take up this offer and deliver it for the people of Northern Ireland before Christmas,” Heaton-Harris said. “However, this package is on the table and will remain there, available on day one of an incoming Northern Ireland Executive to take up.”

The DUP’s walkout in early 2022 was in opposition to new trade rules — put in place after the United Kingdom left the European Union in 2020 — that imposed customs checks and other hurdles on goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. in order to maintain an open border between the north and its EU neighbor, the Republic of Ireland.

The open border is a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process, but the DUP says the new east-west customs border undermines Northern Ireland’s place in the U.K.

In February, the U.K. and the EU agreed a deal to ease customs checks and other hurdles for goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. But it was not enough for the DUP, which continued its government boycott.

Heaton-Harris said talks between the British government and the DUP “have reached a conclusion.”

But DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said more talking needs to be done. “We are very clear, there is not yet agreement finalized on the issues of substance and we will continue to engage with the government to get to the point where that agreement is reached,” he said.

Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald said it was “bitterly disappointing” that other parties in Northern Ireland were still waiting for the DUP to make up its mind.

“This is a decision point,” she said. “The work is done, a decision has to be taken to recall the Assembly and to have the Executive up and running, and that cannot happen soon enough as far as we are concerned.”