Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill has said Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly has “blocked” them from attending an economic summit involving Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
The Sinn Féin vice-president and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) minister were both invited to attend the National Economic Council in Glasgow on Friday alongside other devolved leaders.
The move follows unionist anger over Sinn Féin’s involvement in protests which prevented a contentious Orange Order march in Portadown from passing along the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road.
O’Neill described the move as “reckless and irresponsible” and meant people in Northern Ireland “will not be represented”.
“This is a reactive stunt, driven by the DUP’s own internal pressures and electoral problems,” she said in a statement posted online.
Little-Pengelly said the concerns arising from O’Neill’s conduct and the “anger and hurt felt by many people across Northern Ireland, cannot simply be ignored or minimised”.
She said the decision comes after stopping a separate planned engagement with the President of Ireland, Catherine Connolly.
“I have requested a separate meeting with the Prime Minister to ensure Northern Ireland’s interests, including the urgent budgetary and funding challenges facing the Executive, continue to be represented directly,” she added.
It emerges as a meeting of the DUP’s ruling committee was due to take place on Thursday morning.
Alliance leader Naomi Long said refusing to attend or preventing others from attending the meeting with the prime minister was reckless and put party interests ahead of Northern Ireland’s economic future and the needs of the public.
The Ulster Unionist Party leader Jon Burrows said the DUP’s decision “punishes Northern Ireland, not Michelle O’Neill”.
Party officers were expected to consider whether to withdraw the deputy first minister or cease official engagements with O’Neill, sources told the ‘s Nolan Live programme.