SINN Féin is back-pedalling from its hints two weeks ago of walking out of the Executive in frustration at the DUP.

Michelle O’Neill and finance minister John O’Dowd have both said their party has no intention of quitting.

If Sinn Féin has changed its mind on a walk-out, it must be due in large part to its hints being greeted with almost universal derision.

The DUP may not be a delight to work with, but Sinn Féin is clearly responsible for most of its own policy failures and spooked by its drop in the polls.

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Its little wobble has renewed calls for Stormont reform, yet there is already a reform in place under the New Decade, New Approach deal to stop little wobbles becoming big wobbles.

The Party Leaders’ Forum, set up in 2021, is supposed to meet at least once a month as a “safe space” to flag up and address problems in the Executive. It has not met since Stormont was restored two years ago.

If Sinn Féin’s concerns were genuine, should it not have tried reconvening the forum, or at least mentioned the possibility?

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The DUP is blocking Sinn Féin’s Good Jobs Bill – this is one frustration expressed two weeks ago that holds some water.

The Bill contains new rights for workers and trade unions. Lobbying from the business community caused the DUP to put the brakes on, but businesses are primarily alarmed by the new trade union rights, so the DUP has offered a compromise: split the Bill in two and pass the workers’ rights separately.

Sinn Féin says it would be pointless to create new rights for workers without new trade union powers to uphold them. The unions would also be furious, which must be on the party’s mind.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this argument, it is a classic left-right argument – exactly the type of ‘normal politics’ we are........

© The Irish News