Northern Ireland Assembly

From 7 June 1921 until 30 March 1972, the devolved legislature for Northern Ireland was the Parliament of Northern Ireland, which always had an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) majority and always elected a UUP government. The Parliament was suspended on 30 March 1972 and formally abolished in 1973 under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.

Shortly after this first parliament was abolished, attempts began to restore devolution on a new basis that would see power shared between Irish nationalists and unionists. To this end a new parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, was established in 1973. However, this body was brought down by the Ulster Workers' Council strike and was abolished in 1974. In 1982 another Northern Ireland Assembly was established at Stormont, initially as a body to scrutinise the actions of the Secretary of State, the British minister with responsibility for Northern Ireland. It received little support from Irish nationalists and was officially dissolved in 1986.

The Northern Ireland Act 1998 formally established the Assembly in law, in accordance with the Good Friday (or Belfast) Agreement. The first election of Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly was on 25 June 1998 and it first met on 1 July 1998. However, it only existed in "shadow" form until 2 December 1999 when full powers were devolved to the Assembly. Since then the Assembly has operated intermittently and has been suspended on five occasions:

• 11 February – 30 May 2000
• 10 August 2001 (24-hour suspension)
• 22 September 2001 (24-hour suspension)
• 14 October 2002 – 7 May 2007
• 9 January 2017 – 11 January 2020

Attempts to secure its operation on a permanent basis had been frustrated by disagreements between the two main unionist parties (the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Ulster Unionist Party) and Sinn Féin, the largest nationalist party. Unionists refused to participate in the Good Friday Agreement's institutions alongside Sinn Féin until they were assured that the IRA had discontinued its activities, decommissioned its arms and disbanded.

The 2002–2007 suspension occurred when Unionists withdrew from the Northern Ireland Executive after Sinn Féin's offices at Stormont were raided by the police, who were investigating allegations of intelligence gathering on behalf of the IRA by members of the party's support staff. The Assembly, already suspended, dissolved on 28 April 2003 as scheduled, but the elections due the following month were postponed by the United Kingdom government and were not held until November that year.

Although the Assembly remained suspended from 2002 until 2007, the persons elected to it at the 2003 Assembly election were called together on 15 May 2006 under the Northern Ireland Act 2006 to meet in an assembly to be known as "the Assembly"[5] (or fully "the Assembly established under the Northern Ireland Act 2006") for the purpose of electing a First Minister and deputy First Minister and choosing the members of an Executive before 25 November 2006 as a preliminary to the restoration of devolved government.

Multi-party talks on 11-13 October 2006 resulted in the St Andrews Agreement, wherein Sinn Féin committed to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the mechanism for nominating First and deputy First Ministers was changed. Previously on 23 May 2006, Ian Paisley, leader of the DUP had refused Sinn Féin's nomination to be First Minister alongside Sinn Féin's chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, as deputy First Minister; from St Andrews, these positions were now chosen by larger parties only, while other positions were voted in by sitting MLAs. Eileen Bell was appointed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain to be the Speaker of the Assembly, with Francie Molloy and Jim Wells acting as deputies.[6] The Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 repealed the Northern Ireland Act 2006 and thus disbanded "the Assembly".

The St Andrews Agreement Act provided for a "Transitional Assembly" (or fully "the Transitional Assembly established under the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006") to take part in preparations for the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland. A person who was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly was also a member of the Transitional Assembly. Eileen Bell was Speaker of the Transitional Assembly and Francie Molloy and Jim Wells continued as deputies. The Transitional Assembly first met on 24 November 2006, when the proceedings were suspended due to a bomb threat by loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone.[7] It was dissolved on 30 January 2007 when the election campaign for the current Northern Ireland Assembly started.

An election to the then-suspended Northern Ireland Assembly was held on 7 March 2007. Secretary of State, Peter Hain signed a restoration order on 25 March 2007 allowing for the restoration of devolution at midnight on the following day.[8] The DUP and Sinn Féin consolidated their positions as the two largest parties in the election and, agreed to enter power-sharing government together. An administration was eventually established on 10 May with Ian Paisley as First Minister and Martin McGuinness as deputy First Minister.[9]

This third Assembly was the first to complete a full term,[10] and saw powers in relation to policing and justice transferred from Westminster on 12 April 2010. A five-year term came into effect with the fourth Assembly elected in 2011. Members elected Peter Robinson of the DUP as First Minister and Martin McGuinness as deputy First Minister. The subsequent period was dominated by issues of culture and dealing with the past which culminated in the Fresh Start Agreement of 2014. The first Official Opposition was formed by the UUP in the closing months of the fourth term. Following the election of the fifth Assembly in 2016, only the DUP and Sinn Féin took the seats they were entitled to in the fourth Executive,[11] with Arlene Foster as First Minister and Martin McGuinness as deputy First Minister.

In the wake of the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, McGuinness resigned from the post, bringing an end to almost a decade of unbroken devolution. Sinn Féin withdrew from the Assembly, and a fresh election was held on 2 March. Negotiations mediated by then Secretary of State James Brokenshire missed the three-week deadline provided in law for the formation of an Executive.[12] The passing of an extended legal deadline of 29 June[13][14][15][16] left decisions on funding allocations in the hands of the Northern Ireland Civil Service,[17] and a budget for the ongoing 2017–18 financial year began its passage through the UK Parliament on 13 November.[18][19] Over time, further legislation was passed for Northern Ireland at Westminster, repeatedly extending the deadline for Executive formation. In 2019 the UK Parliament amended one such Bill to legalise same-sex marriage and liberalise abortion in Northern Ireland more widely than in the rest of Britain and Ireland.[20] Talks eventually succeeded under a third Secretary of State Julian Smith. The sixth Assembly resumed on 11 January 2020, shortly before the UK's exit from the European Union.[21][22][23]

A transferred matter is defined as "any matter which is not an excepted or reserved matter".[26] There is therefore no full listing of transferred matters but they have been grouped into the responsibilities of the Northern Ireland Executive ministers:

• Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs
• Communities
• Economy
• Education
• Finance
• Health
• Infrastructure
• Justice
• First and deputy First Minister

Reserved matters are outlined in Schedule 3 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998:[27]

• Navigation (including merchant shipping)
• Civil aviation
• The foreshore, sea bed and subsoil and their natural resources
• Postal services
• Import and export controls, external trade
• National minimum wage
• Financial services
• Financial markets
• Intellectual property
• Units of measurement
• Telecommunications, Broadcasting, Internet services
• The National Lottery
• Xenotransplantation
• Surrogacy
• Human fertilisation and embryology
• Human genetics
• Consumer safety in relation to goods

Excepted matters are outlined in Schedule 2 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998:[28]

• The Crown
• Parliament
• International relations
• Defence
• Immigration and Nationality
• Taxation
• National insurance
• Elections
• Currency
• National security
• Nuclear energy
• Outer space
• Activities in Antarctica

Each MLA is free to designate themselves as "nationalist", "unionist", or "other", as they see fit, the only requirement being that no member may change their designation more than once during an Assembly session. The system has been criticised by some, in particular the cross-community Alliance Party, as entrenching sectarian divisions. Alliance supports ending the official designation of identity requirement and the taking of important votes on the basis of an ordinary super-majority, as does the largest unionist party, the DUP.[39]

Proportion of seats obtained at each election to the Northern Ireland Assembly by those members designated as Unionist, those members designated as Nationalist and those members designated as Other.

Which parties can appoint ministers to the Northern Ireland Executive is determined by a combination of mandatory coalition, the D'Hondt method and cross-community support, depending on the role, as explained above. Coalitions of between three and five parties have governed over the Assembly's history. The Executive of the Sixth Assembly was formed on 11 January 2020.

Unlike the United Kingdom Parliament and the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament), the Assembly had no provision for an official opposition to hold governing parties to account until legislation was passed in 2016.[40][41] A party may now form or join an Assembly Opposition, granting it additional speaking, scrutiny and funding rights, if it was entitled to Ministerial roles under the D'Hondt method and declined them, or if it wins 8% or more of the seats. This opportunity was qualified for and taken by the UUP and SDLP following the 2016 election. Even within the Executive, however, the parties (which have collectively held large majorities in the Assembly) have frequently voted against each other due to political and/or policy differences.

Alongside independents, a total of 15 parties have held seats in the Assembly since 1998:

Unionist:

• Ulster Unionist Party
• Democratic Unionist Party
• Progressive Unionist Party
• UK Independence Party
• Traditional Unionist Voice
• NI21
• United Unionist Coalition
• UK Unionist Party
• Northern Ireland Unionist Party

Nationalist:

• Social Democratic and Labour Party
• Sinn Féin

Other:

• Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
• Green Party in Northern Ireland
• People Before Profit
• Northern Ireland Women's Coalition

The course of the Assembly saw a marked shift in party allegiance among voters. At the 2003 election, the DUP and Sinn Féin displaced the more moderate UUP and SDLP as the largest parties in the unionist and nationalist blocks. The parties only agreed to share power after four years of negotiations and a new election.

The DUP, Sinn Féin, SDLP and UUP have remained the largest parties in the Assembly and so far the only ones entitled to ministerial roles in the Executive under the D'Hondt method. However, there has been growing support for parties designated "Other". The centrist Alliance party secured the roles of Speaker from 1998 to 2007 and Minister of Justice from 2010 to 2016 ( and again from 11 January 2020) thanks to cross-community support, and has seen an increase in its seat wins from 6 to 8. While the NI Women's Coalition disbanded in 2003, two leftist parties, the Green Party in Northern Ireland and People Before Profit Alliance, won their first seats, in 2007 and 2016, respectively.

A rapidly shifting landscape of smaller unionist parties has also been a feature of the Assembly. In 1999 the UK Unionist Party lost four of its five MLAs, disagreeing over a protest against Sinn Féin. The four formed the NI Unionist Party, which again suffered a split and won no seats in the 2003 election. That election also saw the electoral demise of a loose trio of independently-elected unionists who had united as the United Unionist Coalition. Minor unionist parties flourished again after the 2011 election, which saw the disappearance of the PUP from the Assembly and the election of the TUV, a splinter group from the DUP opposed to the St Andrews Agreement. In 2012, a suspended UUP member became UKIP's first MLA, and in 2013 two UUP MLAs resigned to form the progressive NI21,[42] which later split.[43] Of these only the TUV survived the 2016 and 2017 elections.

Disagreements within the Executive precipitated the resignation of the UUP in 2015,[44] and following the 2016 election they and the SDLP formed the first Assembly Opposition. The row also saw Alliance relinquish its Justice role, joining the Greens, PBPA and TUV in unofficial opposition. Independent unionist Claire Sugden gained the cross-community support needed to take over the Ministry of Justice.[45]

An Executive was formed on 11 January 2020 following the 2017 election results, which saw the unionist block lose its Assembly majority for the first time.[46] The usual four largest parties have won enough seats to win ministerial roles under D'Hondt (the DUP three, Sinn Féin two and the SDLP and UUP one each provided neither of them choose to enter opposition[47]). With the reduction in the number of Assembly seats, the 8% threshold now amounts to eight rather than nine seats, qualifying Alliance to enter official opposition if they choose. The Greens have retained their two seats and the TUV and Claire Sugden their single seats, while People Before Profit now hold only one seat.

The table below details changes in members' allegiances and parties' seat possessions.

Vacancies between Assembly elections are filled by co-option. A by-election is still available as an option if the nominated person cannot take his or her seat but none have been held.[55]

The possibility of by-elections or co-options was established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998.[56] In 2001, the Northern Ireland Office introduced a system of substitutes as the preferred option.[57] Under a further change made in 2009, a political party leader directly nominates a new MLA if his or her party won that seat at the previous election. Independent MLAs can continue to use substitutes.[58]

When Sinn Féin MLA Michael Ferguson died in September 2006, no substitutes were available. Sinn Féin was allowed to use his vote in the Assembly (despite his death) and no by-election was held.[59][60] His seat remained vacant until the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election.

Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament), uses the same single transferable vote system for elections as the Assembly but does allow by-elections to fill vacancies. This method is also used for the seats chosen by election in the upper house, Seanad Éireann.

• Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee
• Communities Committee
• Economy Committee
• Education Committee
• Finance Committee
• Health Committee
• Infrastructure Committee
• Justice Committee
• Committee for the Executive Office

• Assembly and Executive Review Committee
• Audit Committee
• Business Committee
• Procedures Committee
• Public Accounts Committee
• Standards and Privileges Committee