WATCH - Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says talks are needed about 'reforming' the Good Friday Agreement - adding this will require Dublin input

He was asked about it at a press conference at Queen’s University Belfast today, after his deputy – Micheal Martin – said the previous day that he wants to see the 1998 deal re-moulded.

The agreement has already undergone one overhaul, 17 years ago, in the form of the St Andrews Agreement.

In essence, it appears that there is now a growing appetite for a kind of St Andrews 2 after the last few years of political limbo, with the Alliance Party and UUP suggesting on Tuesday that such changes may be on the cards.

The UK government described the 2006 St Andrews deal as having been the product of negotiations “between the two governments and all the major parties in Northern Ireland”, and Mr Varadkar today re-stated that the republic should have a hand in another such revamp.

Micheal Martin had said on Tuesday: “The calls for reform of the agreement – including the need to break the cycle of instability and suspension – have grown louder.

“It is clear that the political community between ‘unionist’ and ‘nationalist’ has grown, and I believe that there should be reform. But that is best achieved from a position of stability.”

And asked his own view, the taoiseach told the News Letter today: “I think its a shared view of the Irish and British governments, articulated by the Prime Minister and taniste (Mr Martin) that there is a conversation that needs to happen about reform of the Good Friday Agreement.

"No agreement should be set in stone forever. But that can only happen when the institutions are up and running.

"It requires the consent of the two governments. It requires the consent most importantly of the political parties here in NI.

"So I think there's a time and place to have that conversation, have that debate.

"But it should happen when the Assembly and Executive and North-South Ministerial Council are all up and running, because people will be in a different mode then.

"Doing that absent the institutions operating would be unwise at this stage.”

In a speech today, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had said: “Let me also say to those who would seek to reform the institutions right now: I understand your frustrations.

“But history reminds us that nothing in Northern Ireland has ever been achieved by trying to get round one community or another.

So any conversation about reform can only begin once the institutions are up and running again, and if it attracts widespread consent.”

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