By Seán O'Regan
Donald Trump has announced he has reached an agreement to end the longest running shutdown in the country's history.
The US President's decision means 800,000 people who hadn't received pay since the turn of the year, will return to paid work.
Federal departments will re-open for three weeks to allow for negotiations over Donald Trump's demands for money to build his US-Mexico border wall.
Airports faced major disruption and families of federal workers queued for food handouts, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said the side effects of political stalemate was unfair on workers.
Mr. Trump announced the end of the shutdown in a speech from the White House yesterday evening:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="und" dir="ltr"><a href="https://t.co/RUFlgMxOUq">https://t.co/RUFlgMxOUq</a></p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1088884073370652672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The US Senate and House of Representatives voted to end the partial federal government shutdown with legislation to temporarily fund many agencies.
However, the $5.7 billion that Donald Trump demanded for a border wall with Mexico was not forthcoming.
Trump signed the bill, which will provide funding through February 15th and added that in the meantime, a bipartisan committee of lawmakers would meet to discuss the nation's border security needs.
"I am very proud to announce today that we have reached a deal to end the shutdown and reopen the federal government" he said.
Shortly after his speech from the Rose Garden of the White House, President Trump tweeted to state that his announcement was in no way a concession.
I wish people would read or listen to my words on the Border Wall. This was in no way a concession. It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, it’s off to the races!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019
