How about some cash to sweeten the deal? From the BBC:
The UK government is offering a financial package which, it says, is worth £2.5bn to support the return of a Stormont Executive.
It would include a lump sum to settle public sector pay claims and a new “needs-based” funding formula for public services.
It would also allow overspends from last year and this year to be repaid over five years.
Party leaders have said it is not enough money.
It is understood the government is framing the package as dependent on the return of devolution.
An executive would also have to commit to raising rates – the property taxes paid by households and businesses – by at least 15%.
Sinn Féin’s vice-president Michelle O’Neill said the package offered did not “touch the surface of what is required” for properly funded public services and all parties should fight the UK Treasury together.
She said it is now time for the DUP to return to Stormont and called Wednesday – two days from now – “the cut-off point”.
But the DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the secretary of state had not mentioned any deadline, and said his party was committed to getting agreement with the UK government on post-Brexit trading rules as well as finances.
He said: “Our initial reaction is that [the financial package] falls short of what is required”.
The SDLP’s Colum Eastwood said the money offered was not enough to fill the “black hole” in Stormont’s finances, but said “most of the parties were clear that we have to get Stormont back up and running immediately”.
Alliance’s Naomi Long said the money is not enough because it is “not about a short-term fix, it is not about dangling baubles at us before Christmas and getting everybody to rush back”.
The UUP’s Doug Beattie struck a slightly different tone, saying it was enough to “do the pay deal that needs to be done” for public sector workers, but might not be enough in the long term.
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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