“I know that in collapsing institutions, they’re a lot harder to put back together again. We’ve been there before… But they’re not sustainable in their current form either.

“I think there is an inevitability about these institutions not being able to work if we don’t address the Protocol issues, because it doesn’t have the support of the Unionist community to do that.”

The DUP will “look at the timing of when action needs to be taken”, Mr Givan added.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the leader of DUP, has regularly threatened to collapse Stormont unless urgent fixes to the Protocol can be found, suggesting his party could collapse the Northern Irish power-sharing executive as soon as next month.