Ireland's deputy premier has said it would be a "great shame" if Stormont powersharing is not restored in time to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement next Easter.
Leo Varadkar also said it is unfortunate that, without the institutions "up and running", nobody can legitimately say they speak for the people of Northern Ireland.
The Tanaiste's remarks came as MLAs met during a recalled sitting of the Northern Ireland Assembly in another doomed attempt to restore the Executive.
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Mr Varadkar's Cabinet colleague Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney met with Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris in Belfast on Wednesday to discuss the powersharing impasse and the linked political logjam over Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol.
The DUP is blocking the functioning of the powersharing institutions in Belfast in protest at the protocol.
Unless the DUP changes its stance in the coming months, Northern Ireland will be without a powersharing government when the region marks April's landmark anniversary of the 1998 peace deal that established the devolved institutions in Belfast.
Mr Coveney said the UK and EU both needed to compromise if a resolution to the row over Irish Sea trade was to be reached.
The DUP has been urged to drop its boycott of the devolution to help deliver energy support payments to people in Northern Ireland struggling to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.
Speaking in Government Buildings in Dublin, Mr Varadkar said: "It would be a great shame if we marked the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement next Easter and didn't have the institutions that were established in that agreement up and running. I think that would be a real shame.
"What I would say to all the parties in Northern Ireland, when it comes to any issue, whether it's the protocol, whether it's economic issues, whatever they are - we want to hear the voice of Northern Ireland.
"Without an Assembly functioning and without an Executive, there is nobody who can legitimately say they speak for Northern Ireland. The parties and party leaders can only say at the moment that they speak for their parties."
Mr Varadkar said the Irish Government wants an executive formed and a first minister and deputy first minister elected.
He added: "We want to be able to hear the voice of Northern Ireland on any decision we make that affects them and unfortunately that's not possible at the moment."
Speaking in Belfast after meeting Mr Heaton-Harris, Mr Coveney said: "The big challenge here is can we get devolved government back up and running at a time when people in Northern Ireland desperately need political leadership here in Northern Ireland out of Stormont, and can we do that while issues around the protocol are being resolved or is it possible to resolve the protocol issues and on the back of that have a changed political environment here that can allow devolved government to function again.
"They're the big issues and we need to do everything we can to make sure that we respond to them positively."
He said the EU and UK negotiating teams had engaged on "a lot of detail" this week.
"They have difficult issues to resolve," Mr Coveney added. "They've got to find landing zones, that involves compromise on both sides and I think the EU has shown a willingness to show that level of compromise and I think they will respond generously to the UK if there's an appetite to try and close out a deal here."
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