UK cuts pay of N Ireland lawmakers over government collapse

LONDON – The British government is slashing the salaries of lawmakers in Northern Ireland because the Belfast legislature has been suspended for almost 600 days.

Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley said Thursday that assembly members are not performing “the full range of their legislative functions.” She said salaries will be cut in two stages from November, taking them from 49,500 pounds ($64,000) per year to just under 36,000 pounds ($46,500).

Civil servants have been running Northern Ireland’s government since the Catholic-Protestant power-sharing administration collapsed in January 2017 over a botched green-energy project.

The rift soon widened to broader cultural and political issues separating Northern Ireland’s British unionists and Irish nationalists.

Bradley told the House of Commons that she plans new talks with Northern Ireland’s political parties about restoring a “stable, fully functioning” government.