Mr Ford’s comments come as Sinn Fein and the DUP announced that Executive meetings would resume on Thursday. Alliance has taken their request for extra Assembly sittings to the Speaker and to today’s Business Committee.
David Ford said: “I welcome any progress made towards breaking the deadlock. The Executive must now demonstrate to the public that they are going to make politics work over a sustained period of time.
“Given the backlog of work that needs to be done by the Executive, Alliance has requested that the Assembly hold more sittings in the coming months.
“The people of Northern Ireland are fed up with the sight of politicians not tackling the important issues that impact on their everyday lives. Blame is being cast on all of us.
“Now that the Executive appears to be working, we want extra sitting days in the Assembly to deal with business that the Executive is due to send us.
“Peter Robinson has only had a couple of weeks of a working Executive since he took over as First Minister. He and Martin McGuinness need to demonstrate to the public that they can make Northern Ireland work. Our proposals give the Executive the chance to prove they are serious about making Stormont work and we hope they take this opportunity.
“The proof of this deadlock being broken is not simply an Executive meeting on Thursday. We need to see a sustained period of work from them to meet the public’s real needs in this current financial climate.”
ENDS