claire hanna of the sdlp.s the commentator and author, observer of politics in northern ireland, barney rohan. thanks for joining us again. claire hanna says people do not want to direct rule, they do not want a lame duck assembly either, and assembly in some sort of limbo. what do you think will happen next and what are the options? i think what is needed isa the options? i think what is needed is a longer negotiation. you made the point in your introduction, three weeks is not enough time. certainly nobody here believes you can deal with the impossible issues in that's short space of time. i think it is right. david trimble has mentioned this morning, somebody needs to press the pause button at this stage, allow time for some to manage the shock of these election results, particularly within unionism. and then to allow in a thought through way a sufficient period of time to try to get agreements that this time will stick. because if this fails again then people will want to know what this crisis was all abou

i put that thought that lord trimble had to claire hanna of the nationalist sdlp.emberfor south nationalist sdlp. she's an assembly member for south belfast. it is very difficult to see exactly where we going but the fact is bringing the institutions down is the easy part and reinstating them will be very difficult. ithink, yes, people will want to give that space. we are in a very difficult situation in governance terms. no budget in place as of the 1st of april, no plans for brexit, and we are stepping into a little bit of a void. so going back to direct rule is an abdication of direct responsibility and is letting people down here. so we do want to avoid that. well, in general when you think of elections and election results, often at the end of the voting process people know where they stand, they know who the main party is, they know what direction that party intends to take, even if perhaps they have not voted for that party, but they have a clearer idea. i think the thing about northern ireland politics at the moment is that at the moment we have no clear id