I am absolutely happy to reassure the hon. Lady that if the Secretary of State were to convene the Assembly on Thursday, the day after the funeral of Lyra McKee, the Democratic Unionist party from its leader down would be there, and all our MLAs would be there and ready to take up office and to get on with the job of providing good government for Northern Ireland. I say that to the hon. Lady without any preconditions whatsoever.
We are ready to do the job; this party is ready to act; and I long for the day when we see local Ministers back in Stormont again. However, that does require leadership, and when I consider the issues that need to be dealt with, they pale into insignificance compared with the issues that we have dealt with in the past. As I have often said, the mountains in front of us are no higher than the mountains we have already climbed in Northern Ireland. Yes, I agree with the hon. Lady that the best and strongest message we can send—to that masked gunman in the Creggan, to those who cheered him on and to those who walk the streets of Dublin in their paramilitary garb, wanting to drag us back to the dark days of the past—is to get Stormont back up and running. That is absolutely the case, and it is echoed in the Belfast Telegraph editorial this very day.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds), the parliamentary leader of our party, has said, as our party leader said in the Creggan and as we as a party say in unison on these Benches today, we are ready to govern and we are ready to take our places in the Assembly and Executive. We do not want what has been brought before the House this evening; we want to get on with the job and sort out the issues, as we provide good government for Northern Ireland. I hope that day will come before we reach the expiry date in this. Let us not operate on the basis that that is a target date. Let us operate on the basis that we need government back in Northern Ireland tomorrow. The sooner we get it, the better for all the people of Northern Ireland, and we renew our commitment to do that.
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