Here is a collection of key quotes from Northern Ireland’s election campaign.
“I will not be going back into an executive that is required to implement a protocol that harms Northern Ireland every day” – DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson on his call for UK Government action on the Northern Ireland Protocol.
“I don’t think people woke up this morning thinking about that. I think people woke up this morning thinking about the cost-of-living crisis. I think people woke up this morning around the pressure they feel right now” – Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O’Neill responding to result of a poll on support for Irish unity.
“What the DUP are actually doing is whipping up fear. They are whipping up hysteria. They are saying you have to vote for us or they will call for a border poll. It is a lie” – UUP leader Doug Beattie on DUP election tactics.
“This is not just an election about who will be in government, but about whether or not we will have a government” – Alliance Party leader Naomi Long.
“The reality is though, after 15 years of crisis and failure and walking in and walking out of government, the two parties that are at the very top have failed this community and they don’t want you to talk about it” – SDLP leader Colum Eastwood on Sinn Fein and the DUP.
“There is more of an awakening within unionism than maybe there has been for some time, and I think the protocol has been a catalyst in that regard” – TUV leader Jim Allister on the unionist response to the protocol.
“A political system which allows constant collapse, constant stalemate, to arise is clearly a system long overdue reform” – Green Party NI leader Clare Bailey.
“There is no doubt, the Stormont Executive has failed to protect working people from soaring prices and spiralling waiting lists” – People Before Profit’s Shaun Harkin on the cost of living.
“I cannot accept the candidate that the DUP centrally have imposed on South Down” – Former DUP veteran Jim Wells on why he resigned from the party and supported a candidate from the rival TUV.
“We are not inventing this. Right at the heart of the Sinn Fein manifesto is their demand for a date for a border poll” – Sir Jeffrey Donaldson.
“So I think a lot of people are now considering the constitutional position because Brexit has pulled us out of the EU, stolen our EU citizenship from us” – Michelle O’Neill.
“There will be no united Ireland in my lifetime, there will be no united Ireland in my children’s lifetime” – Doug Beattie on the possibility of a border poll.
“Whatever our challenges, whatever the challenges of the protocol, it cannot be made better by not having a government here; all that does is make people’s lives harder” – Naomi Long.
“It’s slow learners as usual. We have been saying to them for years to stop calling for a border poll ‘now’” – Colum Eastwood on Sinn Fein’s position on a border poll.
