EVEN before the DUP began its ill-judged retreat from its responsibilities at Stormont, our public services were in a poor state.
A dysfunctional executive and a civil service apparently still beset by problems identified in the RHI inquiry have not served us well in a litany of areas from health and education to infrastructure and economic development.
Things have only got worse in the 12 months since Paul Givan's resignation as first minister triggered the collapse of the executive.
That move was engineered by Sir Jeffrey Donaldson as the DUP ramped up its campaign against the NI Protocol.
The DUP and its fellow-travellers in the TUV, Orange Order and other fringe elements were adamant that this approach would somehow place pressure on the British government and the EU.
This was always a highly debatable proposition. What was never in question, however, is that the DUP policy would inevitably heap even more pressure on Northern Ireland's public services, and so inflict harm on citizens.
Now, the respected think tank Pivotal has warned that the situation will only become worse.
Stormont's current absence follows the three-year period from 2017-2020 when rows over RHI and the Irish language also left us without government. However, the economic climate is drastically worse today.
Nor is there an agreed budget or programme for government for civil servants to follow. Decision-making is piecemeal, restricted and uncertain, says Pivotal, who emphasise that all this is happening in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis that is deeply affecting households and businesses.
Health and social care is obviously a particular area of concern. Despite warm words, even when Stormont was operating, politicians failed to implement the reconfiguration of services mapped out as far back as 2016 in the Bengoa Report.
There are limits to the power of civil servants, who are in an invidious position; left in charge of Stormont departments, they lack the legal authority to take major decisions.
These are not trivial matters. As Deirdre Heenan argued in Monday's Irish News, we may have reached the point where the health service is doomed to change only through unplanned collapse, rather than through the sort of carefully planned transformation that is long overdue and which the public deserve.
Although it won't offer a quick-fix, it is nonetheless essential that devolution is fully restored. That means the DUP must, for the sake of our public services, end its boycott and accept the eventual outcome of the protocol negotiations between the EU and the British government.
