Chair of the Executive Office Committee, South Belfast MLA Paula Bradshaw, stated: “The failure of the First Minister and deputy First Minister to have progressed the appointment of a Commissioner for Public Appointments is yet another example of an alarmingly lackadaisical approach to getting on with urgent appointments across the Executive Office and elsewhere.

“The response of the Executive Office to this issue is an abject failure to recognise the urgency of ensuring that public appointments worth millions of pounds of public money are carried out with proper scrutiny.

“The line that there are existing guidelines, so a Commissioner is not really necessary, shows an ongoing and marked lack of urgency around issues like this.”

Committee Deputy Chair and North Down MLA Connie Egan added: “It is not good enough to merely talk in terms of ‘considering a way forward’; the First and deputy First Minister need to move immediately to actually make an appointment.

“We still lack any clear progress on issues such as the appointment of a Victims Commissioner or an Interim Advocate for victims and survivors of the Mother and Baby Homes, and indeed the Executive Office has still not appointed a Permanent Secretary since that last one left over six months ago.

“Two and a half months after restoration, it is long past time we saw some actual delivery.”