TAOISEACH Micheál Martin will travel to Belfast today for a series of meetings aimed at restoring the Stormont institutions.
The Fianna Fáil leader will meet representatives of the main parties to discuss recent developments around the protocol and legacy issues.
Mr Martin is also expected to meet business groups to "engage with them on issues around implementation of the protocol and on economic opportunities for Northern Ireland", his office said last night.
The meetings come in the wake of British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss's announcement of plans to legislate to override parts of the protocol.
The proposed legislation has been met with a mixture of anger and dismay in Brussels and Dublin. The DUP has refused to nominate a deputy first minister or an assembly speaker in protest at what it regards as ongoing issues with the protocol.
The taoiseach yesterday spoke by phone with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who afterwards tweeted that in regards to the protocol, the "EU and Ireland are on the same page – international agreements cannot be disapplied unilaterally".
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney is due to meet Ms Truss in Turin at the Council of Europe, where Ireland takes the presidency for the next six months.
Speaking ahead of his meeting with the taoiseach, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said power-sharing could only work with the consent of unionists and nationalists.
"For two and half years every unionist MLA and MP in Northern Ireland has been voicing opposition to the protocol – there must be new arrangements if we are to move forward," he said.
"We want to see the institutions working fully and relationships restored but that can only happen by building consensus. The unionist viewpoint can no longer be ignored."
