N Ireland politics stay stuck as organ-donor law bid fails

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Northern Ireland’s main British unionist party has scuttled a new attempt to restore the collapsed Belfast-based Assembly, which has not sat for a year. Lawmakers were called to the Stormont assembly building in an attempt to pass a new organ-donation law, named Daithi’s Law after Daithi MacGabhann, a 6-year-old boy awaiting a heart transplant. The bid failed when the Democratic Unionist Party used its veto to block the election of a speaker — a prerequisite for any business to be done. The DUP walked out last year in opposition to post-Brexit trade rules that the party says undermine Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.