Northern Ireland Assembly

The Northern Ireland Assembly, often referred to by the metonym Stormont, is the devolved unicameral legislature of Northern Ireland. It has power to legislate in a wide range of areas that are not explicitly reserved to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and to appoint the Northern Ireland Executive. It sits at Parliament Buildings at Stormont in Belfast.
The Assembly is a unicameral, democratically elected body comprising 90 members known as members of the Legislative Assembly. Members are elected under the single transferable vote form of proportional representation. In turn, the Assembly selects most of the ministers of the Northern Ireland Executive using the principle of power-sharing under the D'Hondt method to ensure that Northern Ireland's largest voting blocs, British unionists and Irish nationalists, both participate in governing the region. The Assembly's standing orders allow for certain contentious motions to require a cross-community vote; in addition to requiring the support of an overall majority of members, such votes must also be supported by a majority within both blocs in order to pass.
The Assembly is one of two "mutually inter-dependent" institutions created under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the other being the North/South Ministerial Council with the Republic of Ireland. The Agreement aimed to end Northern Ireland's violent 30-year Troubles. The first Assembly election was held in June 1998.

History

Previous legislatures

From June 1921 until March 1972, the devolved legislature for Northern Ireland was the Parliament of Northern Ireland, established by the Government of Ireland Act 1920 and meeting from 1932 at Stormont, outside Belfast. Due to gerrymandering practices, the Parliament always had an Ulster Unionist Party majority and always elected a UUP administration. For its first two elections it used proportional representation but switched to First-past-the-post voting in 1929.
It was suspended by the UK Government on 30 March 1972 and formally abolished in 1973 under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.
Northern Ireland was subsequently administered by direct rule until 1999, with a brief exception in 1974. Attempts began to restore on a new basis that would see power shared between nationalists and unionists. To this end a new legislature, the Northern Ireland Assembly, was established in 1973 with a power-sharing Executive taking office in January 1974. However, this body was brought down by the Ulster Workers' Council strike in May 1974. Political discussions continued against the continued backdrop of the Troubles. In 1982, another Northern Ireland Assembly was established, initially as a body to scrutinise the actions of the Northern Ireland Civil Service and the Secretary of State, the UK Government minister with responsibility for Northern Ireland. It was not supported by Irish nationalists and was officially dissolved in 1986.

1998–2002

The Northern Ireland Act 1998 formally established the Assembly in law under the name New Northern Ireland Assembly, in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement. The first election of members of the New 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 with several interruptions and has been suspended on six occasions:

11 February – 30 May 2000
10 August 2001
22 September 2001
14 October 2002 – 7 May 2007
9 January 2017 – 11 January 2020
3 February 2022 – 3 February 2024

Attempts to secure its operation on a permanent basis were initially frustrated by disagreements between the two main unionist parties and Sinn Féin. Unionist representatives 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 weapons, and disbanded.

2002–2007 (suspension)

The Assembly's suspension from October 2002 to May 2007 occurred when unionist parties withdrew from the Northern Ireland Executive after Sinn Féin's offices at Stormont were raided by 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, was dissolved on 28 April 2003 as scheduled, but the elections due the following month were postponed by the UK Government and were not held until November that year.
Although the Assembly remained suspended from 2002 until 2007, the members elected 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 technically known as "the Assembly established under the Northern Ireland Act 2006" for the purpose of electing a First Minister and First Minister and choosing the members of an Executive before 25 November 2006 as a preliminary to the restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive.
Multi-party talks in 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. In 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; after the St Andrews Agreement, these positions were now chosen by larger parties only, while the holders of other positions were elected by sitting MLAs. Eileen Bell was appointed by the Secretary of State, Peter Hain, to be the interim speaker of the Assembly, with Francie Molloy and Jim Wells acting as deputy speakers. The Northern Ireland Act 2006 repealed the Northern Ireland Act 2006 and disbanded "the Assembly".
The St Andrews Agreement Act provided for a "Transitional Assembly established under the Northern Ireland Act 2006" – to continue to contribute to preparations for the restoration of devolved government. A person who was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly was also a member of the Transitional Assembly, with the same speaker and deputy speaker as elected for "the Assembly". The Transitional Assembly first met on 24 November 2006 but proceedings were suspended due to a bomb threat by loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone. It was dissolved on 30 January 2007 when the election campaign for the next Northern Ireland Assembly started.
Subsequently, a new election to the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly was held on 7 March 2007. The DUP and Sinn Féin consolidated their positions as the two largest parties in the election and agreed to enter government together. Peter Hain signed a restoration order on 25 March 2007 allowing for the restoration of devolution at midnight on the following day. An administration was eventually established on 10 May with Ian Paisley as First Minister and Martin McGuinness as deputy First Minister.

2007–2017

This third Assembly was the first legislature in Northern Ireland to complete a full term since the Northern Ireland Parliament which convened between 1965 and 1969 and saw powers in relation to policing and justice transferred from Westminster on 12 April 2010. Peter Robinson succeeded Ian Paisley as First Minister and DUP leader in 2008.
A five-year term came into effect with the fourth Assembly elected in 2011. The subsequent period was dominated by issues of culture and dealing with the past which culminated in the Fresh Start Agreement in 2014. The first Official Opposition in the Assembly was formed by the UUP in the closing months of the fourth term. Following the election of the fifth Assembly in 2016, the DUP and Sinn Féin formed the fourth Executive, with Arlene Foster as First Minister and Martin McGuinness continuing deputy First Minister.

2017–2020 (suspension)

In the wake of the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, McGuinness resigned from his post in January 2017, 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 2017. Negotiations mediated by then Secretary of State James Brokenshire missed the three-week deadline provided in law for the formation of an Executive. The passing of an extended legal deadline of 29 June left decisions on funding allocations in the hands of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and a budget for the ongoing 2017–18 financial year was passed by the UK Parliament. Over time, further legislation was passed for Northern Ireland at Westminster, repeatedly extending the deadline for Executive formation although no direct rule ministers were appointed during this suspension. In 2019, the UK Parliament enacted one such Bill to legalise same-sex marriage and liberalise abortion, in line with Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland.

2020–2022

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.
In February 2021, DUP MLAs threatened to bring down the Assembly and force an early election in protest at Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, which would put a border in the Irish Sea.
On 3 February 2022, First Minister Paul Givan of the DUP resigned. Due to the power-sharing arrangements, this also caused the deputy First Minister to lose her position.

2022–2024 (suspension)

were held for a seventh assembly in May 2022. Sinn Féin emerged as the largest party, followed by the Democratic Unionist Party. The newly elected assembly met for the first time on 13 May 2022 and again on 30 May. However, at both these meetings, the DUP refused to assent to the election of a speaker as part of a protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol, which meant that the assembly could not continue other business, including the appointment of a new Executive. The incumbent speaker and incumbent ministers continued in office in caretaker roles.
After the deadline set by Westminster for restoring devolved government was missed, the Northern Ireland secretary was legally required to schedule the election in the following 12 weeks. However, the secretary extended the deadline for the formation of the executive by six weeks, with an option for a further six week extension, so that any Northern Ireland Assembly election that would occur due to a failure to form an executive would happen at some point in 2023. Further extension of the deadline to 8 February 2024 was brought about by legislation in the Westminster Parliament as a result of continued refusal by the DUP to form an executive.