SINN FÉIN LEADER Mary Lou McDonald has said that there is “absolutely no excuse” for the DUP to continue to block the Northern Ireland Assembly after an updated Brexit deal was reached between the EU and UK.

McDonald said that there was “no time like the present” to restore both the Assembly and Executive, nine months on from elections in Northern Ireland.

“We’re ready to go,” McDonald said.

“We want the Assembly up and running, we want Government back up and running and there is really now no time like the present, no room for further limbo or delay.”

The deal, known as the Windsor Framework, was agreed at the end of February by both the UK and EU as part of efforts to resolve tensions over the Northern Ireland Protocol – which sparked the DUP’s blockade of Stormont in early 2022.

McDonald added that she understood that the DUP needed time to reflect on the deal, but said that it was not reasonable to further delay the establishment of both the Assembly and an Executive.

McDonald was speaking ahead of a meeting with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, which was being held in Government Buildings this afternoon.

The party’s deputy leader and First Minister Designate Michelle O’Neill was also in attendance.

McDonald told reporters that she believed that Sinn Féin and the Government would have “common cause” in attempting to restore both the Assembly and Executive before the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in April.

“We believe that Dublin, the Government here needs to bring a sense of pace, a sense of urgency and purpose too that.

“This is a collective effort, the success has always been when we’ve been working together so we’re anxious for that to happen as well.

“We fully expect that we will have common ground and common cause with the government in respect of making peace work, making the Good Friday Agreement work, and getting government up and running for people in the North at a time when families, workers are under such enormous pressure.”