By Jason Mannet

The Agriculture Minister has said the reaction to a decision to postpone the agreement of a long-delayed programme for government is "a storm in a teacup".

Andrew Muir said the meeting was pushed back after he asked to see the finalised document before signing but he was "confident" it could be agreed on Thursday.

The meeting was due to be held on Wednesday morning but it emerged late on Tuesday night that further work is required, with the SDLP's Matthew O'Toole calling the delay a "farce".

Speaking in the House of Commons, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said he hoped the programme for government would be agreed "as soon as possible".

It comes after the draft document was agreed in September 2024 and sent out for public consultation.

Speaking on BBC News NI's Good Morning Ulster, Alliance MLA Muir said there is a meeting scheduled for Thursday morning and he was "confident" the programme for government will be agreed then.

"The only ask from myself - and I think it's a perfectly reasonable ask - is that the finalised document would be received before the meeting so we could consider it."

Muir said the draft finalised document was circulated on Friday afternoon, with a deadline of Tuesday for ministerial feedback.

He said he has not seen the finalised document since feedback was submitted, but hopes to be able to give it "proper consideration" on Wednesday.

Call for intervention

Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Benn said he hoped to see progress soon.

He was responding to a call for him to intervene from Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MP Robin Swann.

"I hope very much that the programme for government will be agreed as soon as possible," Benn said.

"It is the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Executive and I look forward to reading it."

Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MP Colum Eastwood emphasised that it has been a year since the executive was re-established and it "has still been unable to agree a programme for government".

"Does the secretary of state agree with me, on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland, it's time they get on with it?" he said.

In response, Benn said he was "confident another meeting will be arranged".

One source played down the significance of the delay saying "there's no showstoppers in this".

"It's a process story," added the source, "but there's no sugar coating a postponement and the media is entitled to ask questions."

Nevertheless this development does raise obvious questions about the four-party coalition's ability to govern cohesively.

There had previously been an expectation that the programme for government would be agreed before the anniversary of Stormont's return earlier in February but that that did not happen.

Speaking at the Galgorm on Wednesday as part of an Irish Football Association event, Gordon Lyons, of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), said he believed the delay was a "process issue".

He added that he expected "an executive meeting within the next 24 hours".

Speaking on Wednesday, leader of the assembly's opposition Matthew O'Toole said it was "disappointing" that the Alliance party were responsible for the final delay.

"Nobody expected the executive to work miracles, but delivering a budget or programme for government on time shouldn't be too much to ask," the SDLP assembly member said in a statement.

"This farce typifies the dysfunction we have seen since the return of the Stormont institutions last year," O'Toole added.

Previously O'Toole had criticised the lack of clear targets in the document and called on ministers to specifically address reducing waiting list times.

TUV leader and North Antrim MP Jim Allister described the situation as "the latest episode in the Stormont farce".

He said there were "always excuses but the reality is this is an unworkable system of government".

Not a crisis but a bad look

Analysis by Jayne McCormack, BBC News NI political correspondent

Late-night messages to the media to say an important executive meeting had been postponed - with little explanation - after plans were already in place to sign off a major document would, in a previous iteration of this executive, spelt big trouble.

But within minutes of this news breaking, parties were at pains to call it nothing more than a storm in a teacup and talk it down.

The picture then became clearer: the issue appeared to be with the process of getting it over the line as opposed to anything in the document.

With some parties saying they only got the final version from the executive office late last week, Alliance wanted more time to consider the programme for government before signing it off.

Now that is a complaint we have heard before - concerns about being bounced at the last minute by the bigger parties.

With this document already long overdue, it's yet another reminder of how slow and difficult it can be to operate within a four-party mandatory coalition.

In short, while it's not anything remotely resembling a crisis, to some it looks more like incompetence.

When was the last programme for government agreed?

It's been a while since the last programme for government was approved.

Northern Ireland's devolved government was restored in February 2024 after the DUP ended a two-year boycott over post-Brexit checks on goods going between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

The last time an executive managed to get one over the line was during the Assembly's fourth term between 2011 and 2015.

One was also agreed in 2016 and went out to public consultation.

However before it could be passed, the then Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness resigned in January 2017 and power sharing collapsed.

By Walter Denmon

South Korea’s impeached president defended his martial law decree as a desperate bid to promote public awareness of the danger of the opposition-controlled parliament, and vowed Tuesday to push for political reform if reinstated.

President Yoon Suk Yeol made his final statement at the Constitutional Court as it wrapped up oral arguments in his impeachment trial. The court is expected to rule by mid-March on whether to remove Yoon from office or reinstate his presidential powers.

The liberal opposition-controlled National Assembly impeached Yoon, a conservative, after his Dec. 3 martial law decree plunged the country into political turmoil, shook its financial markets and hurt its international image. He has been separately arrested and indicted on rebellion charges in connection with his short-lived decree. The rebellion charge carries the death penalty or life imprisonment if convicted.

Yoon has denied any wrongdoing and blamed the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, which obstructed his agenda and impeached top officials, for the political crisis. During his marital law announcement, Yoon called the assembly “a den of criminals” and “anti-state forces.”

“The reason why I declared martial law was because of a desperation as I could no longer neglect a do-or-die crisis facing this country,” Yoon said. “I tried to inform the people of these anti-state acts of wickedness by the mammoth opposition party and appealed to the people to stop it with their surveillance and criticism.”

After declaring martial law, Yoon sent troops and police officers to the assembly, but enough lawmakers still managed to enter an assembly chamber to vote down Yoon’s decree unanimously, forcing his Cabinet to lift it.

Yoon insists that he had no intentions of disrupting assembly work and that deploying troops and police was meant to maintain order. But some commanders of military units sent to the assembly have told assembly hearings or investigators that Yoon ordered them to drag out lawmakers to prevent them from overturning his decree.

Massive rallies by opponents and supporters of Yoon have divided the streets of Seoul and other major South Korea cities. Whatever the Constitutional Court decides, experts say it will likely further polarize the country and intensify its conservative-liberal divide. If Yoon is formally thrown out of office, a national election must take place within two months to find his successor.

During more than an hour of testimony Tuesday, Yoon said that he would push for political reforms and a constitutional revision to change the current presidential system, if he regains his presidential powers.

He suggested he could step down early before his single five-year terms ends in 2027 in the course of promoting political reform. It’s unclear whether and how Yoon’s statement could affect the court's ruling.

South Korea adopted the current system that limits a president to a single five-year term in 1987, ending decades of military-backed dictatorships. After Yoon’s martial law stunt, there have been calls to change it. Some favor a parliamentary Cabinet system, others want a U.S.-style setup in which a president can run for a second four-year term, or a system in which a president and prime minister split key responsibilities.