Sinn Féin's leader in Northern Ireland Michelle O'Neill has called on the British and Irish governments to deliver a plan to restore the Stormont power-sharing institutions.
She was speaking after the results of the Northern Ireland local government election showed a stunning result for Sinn Féin, which took 144 seats across the 11 councils, an increase of 39 councillors.
In 2019, it had 105 councillors returned.
Ms O'Neill said: "We haven't had power-sharing now for a year-and-a-half.
"The DUP walked away because they said they wanted to influence the (Northern Ireland) Protocol discussions and negotiations.
"Those negotiations are now complete, so there is no rhyme nor reason for them to stay out of having a locally-elected Assembly and executive delivering good public services for people."
Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, Ms O'Neill said she was calling on the Irish and British governments to come together to establish a meeting of the British Irish Governmental Conference to come up with a plan for the restoration of the Assembly.
She said this was needed "because all the while when the DUP stay out of the Executive and the Assembly, public services are suffering, the public are suffering because of austerity, because of cuts that are coming directly from London.
"It is not a tolerable situation, there shouldn't be any more delays and I want to see a plan on the table as to how we are going to get back around the table to make politics work and to have a locally-elected Assembly."
She added: "Top of the DUP manifesto in this election was that they wanted to restore the Executive, they asked people to vote for them to get back into the Assembly.
"Now there shouldn't be any delay; let's do that."
The results mean that Sinn Féin is now the largest party of local government, a year after it won the biggest share of seats in the Stormont Assembly election.
Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, Ms O'Neill said that while the DUP continues its boycott of power-sharing, public services are suffering because of austerity and cuts that are coming directly from London.
"The rest of us stand ready and have been ready from last May but the DUP have refused to honour last year's Assembly election results", she said.
On Sinn Féin's success in this week's elections, Ms O'Neill said the party ran a very positive campaign, which resonated with voters.
"We suspected from early on that we would do well given the response that we were getting from the voters, but obviously we have gone on to have a momentous election result," she said.
Ms O'Neill added: "It comes hot on the heels of last year's Assembly election result where we became the largest party of the Assembly, and now the largest party of local government.
"There is now a big responsibility on us which we take very seriously in terms of trying to get back into the Assembly, get an executive up and running and delivering local services for people with our hard-working local council team."
The bulk of Sinn Féin's gains came from the SDLP, but it took seats right across the political spectrum including from smaller parties like the Green Party, People Before Profit, some Independents and some unionists.
The Alliance Party also had a good election.
With 67 councillors, it is now the third biggest party behind Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
However, it did not do as well as it had hoped, losing several seats in Derry and failing to make gains in target areas especially in the west of Northern Ireland.
The DUP ran fewer candidates than in 2019. The strategy worked with the party consolidating, holding off a challenge from its hardline unionist rivals the TUV.
It returned exactly the same number of councillors, 122, as in 2019.
Both the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the SDLP suffered significant losses, the UUP losing 21 seats and the SDLP 20.
Smaller parties like People Before Profit, the Green Party and some Independents also lost out.
The final result shows Sinn Féin 144; DUP 122; Alliance 67; UUP 54; SDLP 39; Others 36.
Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said stable and accountable government is the best way of delivering on the issues that matter most to the people of Northern Ireland, as he offered his congratulations to those elected.
He added: "Alongside the new councils, it remains my hope to see the Assembly and Executive return to work, as laid out in the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.
"I remain in close contact with the parties and will continue to do everything I can to facilitate the restoration of the Executive."
Read more: Sinn Féin 'tsunami' hits local government
