Northern Ireland Assembly
Your Assembly, Your Say

A reader has asked the following question:

Are there any plans in the pipeline which would see a change in the consociationalist coalition towards a government and official opposition system within the Northern Ireland Assembly?

The system of government used in Northern Ireland was established in the Northern Ireland Act 1998, signed by both the UK and Irish Governments.
For further information about the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement (PDF) which preceeded the Northern Ireland Act and the 2006 St Andrews Agreement (PDF), please contact the Northern Ireland Office, www.nio.gov.uk

What are your views on this subject?

I would like to know how many members are required to attend the various sessions and debates and how we can find out whether and how they voted.

It seems that there is no accountability and if a member fails to attend there is no record or consequence.

On 22nd June there was a vote on the Wildlife and Natural Environment Bill but only 41 of a possible 108 MLAs were in attendance.  How can a vote be held with fewer than half of the members present?

A reader has submitted the following question:

Why is the Northern Ireland  ‘Local’ Assembly debating the current situation/crisis in the Middle East?
I cannot see the relevance of our elected Local Assembly Members wasting public money and time to discuss something that does not have a bearing on the people of Northern Ireland.
Our Assembly finds it hard enough to agree upon and debate important issues that have a bearing on our lives, e.g education, but can organised a debate on something occurring half a world away.
Once again our MLAs have shown they have lost the plot in terms of what the electorate of NI needs.

For those who may not be aware, the Assembly held a special sitting on Friday 4th of June to discuss the following motion:

That this Assembly, conscious of the presence of Nobel laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire on board the MV Rachel Corrie, calls on Israel to conform with international human rights norms and joins with the British and Irish Governments in condemning the disproportionate actions by Israel earlier this week; recognises that every nation has the right to defend itself but that each nation also has a responsibility to respect and comply with international law; and further calls on Israel to ensure that humanitarian efforts in Gaza are facilitated, that an immediate end to the blockade is effected and that the MV Rachel Corrie is given safe passage to Gaza.

You can find the Official Report of the discussion on this webpage.

MLAs, as elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland, debate many issues of concern. The situation in Gaza is of great interest and it is not unusual that MLAs should debate this issue and add their views to the views of others from across the world.

We publish a list (updated weekly) of proposed motions for debate, which are called No Day Named Motions.  A no day named motion is the term given to a motion for which no date has been fixed for debate and are published on this page http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/io/noday.htm.