Sir Jonathan Stephens:

Fundamentally, there were no Ministers available to give direction and take critical decisions. The Northern Ireland civil service was left in a wholly unprecedented situation, which I know from talking to many of them they found intensely challenging and was not at all what they sought. Civil servants are trained to work for and support the Government of the day and Ministers and provide their advice to Ministers, who take decisions that civil servants then implement. Our colleagues in the Northern Ireland civil service were left trying to maintain the machinery of Government and trying to provide public services in the absence of ministerial decisions, and they found that increasingly uncomfortable as time went on.