The Northern Ireland Assembly

9 Key excerpts on "The Northern Ireland Assembly"

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  Multi-Level Governance and Northern Ireland

  • Cathy Gormley-Heenan, Derek Birrell(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  4 Devolved Government – The Northern Ireland Assembly

  Introduction

  This chapter focuses on The Northern Ireland Assembly as the cornerstone of the devolved governance arrangements in Northern Ireland and as the level of governance that the public believe ought to have the greatest influence over how Northern Ireland is run. To begin, its election and composition is explained and its major functions described. The distinctive features of community designation for members, the lack of an official opposition and the system of vetoes are explained. The legislative role of the Assembly for primary and secondary legislation and the legislative process involving committees are described. An analysis of the number and types of legislation enacted is provided. Particular attention is given to: the scrutiny role of committees, including the original intention for an opposition-type role; the scope of scrutiny investigations; the response by government; and the impact on policy. The composition of committees and party affiliation of chairs and vice-chairs is analysed. The importance of the Public Accounts Committee is stressed and the activities of other Assembly committees are assessed, including ad-hoc committees and all-party committees. Despite the public sentiment that the Assembly ought to have the greatest level of influence over how Northern Ireland is governed, we conclude that, because the Assembly operates with such a strong party-whipping system and with deep party divisions and veto mechanisms, it tends not to take independent stances in opposition to the Executive nor exercise a degree of autonomy. Finally, the interaction of the Assembly with the other various governance arrangements and structures is considered as a test of whether too much attention is being paid to devolved government at the expense of the other layers of MLG 1/MLG 2 governance arrangements, and whether blurring or overlap of the division of functions exists in the current governance arrangements. In short, this chapter considers both the principle and practice

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  The Parliaments of Autonomous Nations

  • Guy Laforest, André Lecours(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • McGill-Queen's University Press

    (Publisher)

  7

  The Assembly of Northern Ireland: Hope and Constraint

  GUY LAFOREST

  On the occasion of a major speech in Belfast in the summer of 2013, American president Barack Obama talked about the exemplarity of Northern Ireland for the world. He found it profoundly edifying and promising that this troubled theatre of one of the most intractable conflicts of the twentieth century (and of all kinds of political drama in previous eras) had also seen the emergence of a movement toward peace and intercommunity dialogue culminating in the Good Friday–Belfast Agreement of 1998 (leading to the British Northern Ireland Act of the same year) and the St Andrews Agreement of 2006 (leading to modifications of the Northern Ireland Act). Although he believed that much work remained to be done in the institutional consolidation of the peace process and in the development of a corresponding political culture of cross-community respect and cooperation, he congratulated the people of Northern Ireland for instilling an ingredient of hope for themselves and for the global politics of our times.1 Thus, André Lecours and I have included the Assembly of Northern Ireland in this comparative examination of the parliaments of autonomous nations with regard to their roles in securing and enlarging political autonomy on the one hand, and affirming and preserving a distinct identity on the other.2

  For those of us living in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, the history of Ireland as a whole, and particularly that of Northern Ireland, bears many resemblances to our own history. Our respective histories are linked to that most formidable of medieval political cathedrals, the British state, whose post-1997 renovation by the Labour government led by Tony Blair in the era of devolution included the Good Friday–Belfast Agreement of 1998, which led to the re-establishment of an autonomous parliament in Northern Ireland.3 Our shared history includes conquests, failed rebellions, and wars, but also compromises and breakthroughs. With the great famine of the nineteenth century, which brought many Irish people to Quebec and to the rest of Canada; with the civil wars before and after the partition of 1920 which separated the six Northern Irish counties from the rest of the island; and with the Troubles that emerged at the end of the 1960s following almost five decades of discrimination against Catholics by the Protestant-led Northern Irish Stormont Parliament, it is undeniable that the history of Northern Ireland has included much more violence and tragedy than our own.4 Nevertheless, as Canadian political scientist Garth Stevenson has recently argued, our paths have been parallel and we have much to learn from each other.5

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  The Northern Ireland Assembly

  Reputations and Realities

  • Sean Haughey(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  McCulloch & McEvoy 2020 ). As a consociational legislature, the Assembly has a contribution to make to debates about the practical and normative implications of designing democratic institutions in this way.

  At a more local level, what the Assembly does matters, or ought to matter, to Northern Ireland’s 1.9 million inhabitants. As the region’s primary law-making body, the Assembly legislates on an expansive (and potentially expanding) range of important policy areas – from justice and the environment to healthcare and the economy – when it is allowed to function (see Table 1.1 ). When the Assembly is not allowed to function, either because it has been suspended by the British government (as in 2002, for instance) or because parties are refusing to share power (as in 2017 and 2022), these policy areas are neglected and citizens in Northern Ireland pay the price. This has been a fact of life in Northern Ireland since law-making powers were transferred from London to Belfast in 1999 as part of New Labour’s devolution project. When the devolved institutions do not function, direct rule from London is implemented (as was the case from 2002 to 2006) or a limited form of civil service rule is operationalised, in which officials take over responsibility for maintaining public services (as was the case from 2017 to 2020, and from October 2022 until the time of writing).6 These alternatives to a devolved administration are fraught with difficulties. Notwithstanding the associated political and constitutional problems, direct rule is ill-equipped to deliver policies tailored to local needs (Horgan 2006 ), whereas civil service rule is accompanied by legal and financial uncertainties (Sargeant & Rutter 2019

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  Identity and Institutions

  Conflict Reduction in Divided Societies

  • Neal G. Jesse, Kristen P. Williams(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • SUNY Press

    (Publisher)

  We do not wish to push this analogy too far. Yet we hope that it is clear to the observer that the general “framework” is the same: a set of international institu- tions at different levels of government (e.g., ministerial and assem- bly) with broadly parliamentary features (e.g., representative and voting) derived from national and sub-national governments. Importantly, in both the EU and in the new British-Irish Peace Agreement, these international institutions play three vital roles: (1) the promotion of overlapping identities through differing layers of representation (European identity, Northern Irish identity, and party identification); (2) a framework for credible commitments (British and Irish governments); and (3) a pooling of sovereignty (Irish-British communities and Protestant-Catholic communities). It should be abundantly clear from this discussion that the new institutions in the British Isles allow all actors multiple forums to which to bring their concerns. The end result is that both Northern Ireland communities should feel more secure (thereby reducing the ethnic security dilemma) because policy does not rest in a single political arena (e.g., the British House of Commons or The Northern Ireland Assembly). Likewise, the two national governments have created institutions in which they can consult and cooperate in the creation and implementation of policy—fostering a credible com- mitment by all parties to the Agreement. 87 Protestants, Catholics 107 Three new relationships are of particular importance. First, the Catholic community can now interact in a structured manner with the Irish government in Dublin. In this way, the minority community in Northern Ireland can turn to other political bodies for redress if the new Northern Ireland Assembly does not meet its needs. The Agreement also satisfies the Republican movement’s goal of bringing the conflict into the context of an “Irish” question and not a question of British internal policy.

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  The Politics of Northern Ireland

  • Joanne McEvoy(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • EUP

    (Publisher)

  It is important to note here that the communal designation system was amended by the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 whereby MLAs cannot change their designation in the course of a term of o ffi ce except in the situation where they change membership of a political party. There were some inter-party di ffi culties visible on the fl oor of the Assembly over the period. In particular, the anti-Agreement DUP tried to exclude Sinn Féin on a number of occasions, when it employed the petition of concern to trigger Sinn Féin’s exclusion but was unable to get the necessary cross-community vote. The Assembly of 1999–2002 worked fairly well, however, despite the inter-party tensions and the Institutional Framework of the Agreement 135 di ffi culties over decommissioning. For instance, during this period of devolution the Assembly produced thirty-six Acts on transferred matters, and at the time of suspension in October 2002 a total of twenty-two Bills in process by the Assembly were reintroduced as Orders in Council at Westminster. 1 As outlined below, an important success of the Assembly was evident in the committee system. The developing role of Assembly committees An interesting feature of The Northern Ireland Assembly established by the Good Friday Agreement was the developing role of the Assembly committees. Under the Agreement the committees have an extensive remit. They are able to scrutinise the work of their associ-ated departments, undertake the committee stage of primary legisla-tion, examine secondary legislation, draft inquiry reports and initiate Bills. Thus, the statutory committees enjoyed considerable authority as they are charged by the Agreement to ‘advise and assist’ the depart-ments ‘in the formulation of policy’. The Assembly established a number of statutory committees to scrutinise the work of their associated departments.

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  Territory, Identity and Spatial Planning

  Spatial Governance in a Fragmented Nation

  • Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Philip Allmendinger(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The Agreement, 1998). This was something of a tall order given the regularity with which Northern Ireland’s politicians mined history (real and imagined) in pursuit of modern political agendas. History augured poorly for contemporary attitudes to the newly devolved version of The Northern Ireland Assembly.

  Space does not permit a full catalogue of the trials of the infant years of the new powersharing Assembly, but a brief sketch is required before outlining public attitudes to the institution. The key problem lay in the chronic mistrust between nationalists and republicans on the one hand and unionists and loyalists on the other. The Belfast Agreement had attempted to put to one side their essential conflict (a clash of incompatible nationalisms) and hoped that the Assembly and its companion institutions and mechanisms would provide avenues for harmonious day-to-day inter-group cooperation and the management of grievances. But the nationalist and unionist constitutional projects continued to pollute an Assembly that was only mandated to look after local governance matters. ‘Outbidding’ from intra-group competition (Sinn Féin versus the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and the Democratic Unionists versus the Ulster Unionists) meant that there was little space for centre ground accommodation. The contested interpretation and implementation of the Belfast Agreement, especially with regard to the decommissioning of republican arms stocks, provided an unpromising terrain for the new powersharing administration.

  Although elections for the Assembly were held in June 1998, nationalist versus unionist wrangling meant that the Assembly did not meet and its power-sharing Executive was not nominated until November 1999. Disagreement over the decommissioning of republican arms led to the first suspension of the Assembly between February and May 2000. The Assembly was again suspended in August 2001, for 24 hours, and between September and November 2001. The fourth, and longest lasting, suspension came in October 2002 following allegations that the IRA was using the Assembly as a base for spying. Since then, little of substance has occurred. Elections to the moribund Assembly were held in November 2003 and saw Sinn Féin and the DUP make large gains (later confirmed by the May 2005 general election). The DUP rejects the ‘forlorn hope that Sinn Féin can eventually be sanitised’ and proposes a ‘voluntary coalition’ to form a devolved government (DUP, 2005). This contradicts the principle of inclusion that underpinned the peace process and would require a major policy shift from the nationalist SDLP if the voluntary coalition was to have a cross-community dimension. British and Irish government attempts to broker nationalist–unionist deals have foundered amid further claims of republican involvement in violence and unionist dissatisfaction with the Belfast Agreement.

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  Disputed Territories

  The Transnational Dynamics of Ethnic Conflict Settlement

  • Stefan Wolff(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Berghahn Books

    (Publisher)

  Another proposal for a devolutionist arrangement, supported by the cross-communal Alliance Party, and to some extent by sections of the UUP, was power-sharing, giving political representatives from both communities the opportunity to be involved in the executive and legislative branches of a new system of government in Northern Ireland. While the moderate Nationalist community, primarily the SDLP, supported the idea of power-sharing, they wanted it to be qualified by some executive and legislative involvement of the Republic of Ireland, which was unacceptable for Unionists before the 1990s. Somewhere between suggestions for integration into Britain and Irish reunification stand (i) proposals for repartition along the major demo-graphic divides in the West and South West of the province, (ii) the inde-pendence of Northern Ireland from both Britain and the Republic, and (iii) joint authority of both states over Northern Ireland. With the excep-tion of joint authority, which found significant support among National-ists, none of these proposals was attractive to significant sections within either of the two major traditions in Northern Ireland. In contrast, the idea of a united Ireland has always been very popular in the Nationalist community, but strongly opposed by Unionists. While moderate Nation-alists favour its achievement by consent and peaceful, constitutional and democratic ways, Republican paramilitary groups have tried since 1921 to force the issue through violence. All these positions have developed and gradually changed over time. Nevertheless, they provide a general understanding about where the dis-tinct political traditions and different parties within them come from. As such, they form the context for the three most significant attempts to manage and settle the conflict before the Good Friday Agreement – the Sunningdale and Anglo-Irish Agreements and the Joint Declaration .

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  Constitutional Reform and Brexit

  • Gary Wilson(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  It should also be noted that the GFA provided for a series of measures to promote and strengthen cross-border cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, including the creation of some all-Ireland institutions. 65 While these are largely beyond our remit, in anticipation of some of the discussion which will follow, it should be noted that this process benefitted greatly from the support of EU initiatives facilitated by the fact that both parts of the island of Ireland enjoyed membership of the organisation. 66 59 The Northern Ireland Assembly was created by the Northern Ireland Act 1998. 60 For an overview of devolution to Northern Ireland, see Torrance, supra n.37, pp.16–23. 61 The Belfast Agreement: An Agreement Reached at the Multi-Party Talks on Northern Ireland, Cm. 3883. An important aspect of the GFA was the creation of mechanisms for cooperation between Northern Ireland/UK and the Republic of Ireland. As Anthony notes, this carried ‘obvious political significance to … Nationalists in the sense that they embody an all-Ireland dimension’ to governance; Anthony, G., Brexit and the Irish Border: Legal and Political Questions, A Royal Irish Academy-British Academy Brexit Policy Discussion Paper, 2018, p.4, available at https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/96/BrexitandtheIrishBorderLegalandPoliticalQuestions_0.pdf 62 Until 2022, the first minister had always been a member of the largest Unionist Party and the deputy first minister a member of the largest Nationalist Party. These roles were reversed following the 2022 Assembly elections in which Sinn Fein topped the poll, ahead of the DUP, although neither role has been filled at the time of writing due to the Assembly’s failure to sit. On the nature of the Assembly’s structure and workings, see Wilford, R. & Wilson, R., A Democratic Design? The Political Style of The Northern Ireland Assembly (London: Constitution Unit, 2001). 63 Northern Ireland Act 1998, Schedule 3

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  Northern Ireland and the European Union

  The dynamics of a changing relationship

  • Mary C. Murphy(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Manchester University Press

    (Publisher)

  2012 ). For the most part, however, ‘bread and butter’ issues have increasingly become the focus of recent elections. This shift towards engagement with a new type of electoral politics focused on policy concerns is undeniably welcome. It has been accompanied to some small degree by a unity of purpose and a shared perspective among former political foes about the focus and direction of specific policies and positions. The combined response of the Northern Ireland Executive to the 2010 UK Spending Review is a case in point. The type of political party consensus on policy displayed in this instance, however, is not typically the norm. Tensions in relation to the development of policy exist between parties and include, for example, education policy and language policy which spark intense political dispute between political blocs and political parties alike.

  Table 4.3 Percentage of share of votes by party, 1998–2011

  Type of election: A, Assembly; E, European Parliament; L, Local Council; W, Westminster Parliament. Source: Adapted from Dixon (2008 : 11) and www.ark.ac.uk/elections/ .

  a TUV denotes Traditional Unionist Voice.

  In general, Northern Ireland political parties have responded to devolution by developing their policy platforms. Prior to the introduction of devolution, parties did not explicitly profile themselves according to the left-right spectrum or non-constitutional policy positions. Although electoral manifestos made reference to economic and social policy issues, they were not normally the focus of electoral campaigns. As Wilson and Fawcett noted with reference to the 2003 Assembly election: ‘The Assembly election coverage was in many respects a policy-free zone’ (2004 : 62). In recent years, the ‘absence’ of policy has been less pronounced. Parties have developed their manifestos and produced more robust policy platforms.7

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