Nationalist O’Neill becomes first minister of Northern Ireland
LONDON — The Northern Ireland Assembly, the Stormont, was officially restored on Saturday in Belfast after a two-year hiatus, with Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill appointed as Northern Ireland’s first minister.
O’Neill said in her speech that the day “opens the door to the future”.
The power-sharing model of government in Northern Ireland was introduced in the 1990s as a way of ending decades of violence as part of the Good Friday Agreement. It requires the representation of both nationalist and unionist parties in any government.
O’Neill’s nomination was seen as a highly symbolic moment for nationalists.
“This is a historic day which represents a new dawn,” O’Neill said.
“That such a day would ever come would have been unimaginable to my parents and grandparents’ generation. … A more democratic, more equal society has been created making this a better place for everyone.”
O’Neill will share power with deputy first minister Emma LittlePengelly from the Democratic Unionist Party, or DUP. The two will be equals, but O’Neill, whose party captured more seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly in the 2022 elections, will hold the more prestigious title.
Neither side can govern without agreement from the other. Government business ground to a half over the past two years after the DUP walked out to protest trade issues related to Brexit.
The developments came after the DUP ended a two-year boycott of the region’s power-sharing government early last week. The DUP and the government of the United Kingdom struck a deal to remove routine checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. The deal was subsequently approved by the UK parliament.
The DUP, the largest pro-British party in Northern Ireland, collapsed the power-sharing government with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein in February 2022 in the dispute over post-Brexit trade rules.
The DUP has been opposed to the Northern Ireland Protocol, the trade solution agreed by London and the European Union to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the neighboring Republic of Ireland.
Under the deal, an Irish Sea border was created between the British mainland and Northern Ireland, meaning goods transported to and from Northern Ireland are subjected to border controls.
O’Neill, 47, comes from a family with links to the militant Irish Republican Army, or IRA.
She has been criticized for attending events commemorating the IRA and told an interviewer there was “no alternative” to the group’s armed campaign during the Troubles, the period of about 30 years of violent conflict over the future of Northern Ireland, which ended with the Good Friday accords.