How the Northern Ireland Assembly Works
The Northern Ireland Assembly is the devolved legislature for Northern Ireland. It sits at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, and its 90 elected Members — MLAs — make laws, scrutinise government departments and represent the people of Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies. This guide explains what the Assembly is, where its power comes from, and how its main parts fit together.
Where the Assembly comes from
The Assembly was created by the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and given legal form by the Northern Ireland Act 1998. It is a power-sharing institution: it was deliberately designed so that no single community can govern alone. That design shows up throughout its rules — in how the First Minister and deputy First Minister are appointed, in how ministerial posts are shared out between parties, and in special voting rules that require support from both unionist and nationalist Members for certain decisions.
The Assembly legislates on transferred (devolved) matters — areas like health, education, agriculture, justice and infrastructure. Other areas remain with the UK Parliament at Westminster. Our guide to devolved, reserved and excepted powers explains exactly where the line falls.
The 90 MLAs
Northern Ireland is divided into 18 constituencies, each electing five MLAs — 90 in total — using the Single Transferable Vote (STV), a form of proportional representation. Because each constituency returns five Members, most people are represented by MLAs from several different parties. You can find all five of your representatives on your constituency’s page.
On taking their seats, MLAs designate themselves as unionist, nationalist or other. Designation matters because some Assembly votes require cross-community support — see our guide to how votes work.
An MLA’s job spans four broad roles: making laws, scrutinising ministers and departments, controlling public spending, and helping constituents. Our guide What does an MLA actually do? covers a typical working week.
The Speaker and the plenary
Full meetings of the Assembly — plenary sittings — normally take place on Mondays and Tuesdays in the Assembly Chamber. Business includes debates on bills, votes, ministerial statements, and Question Time, when MLAs question ministers directly.
Sittings are chaired by the Speaker, an MLA elected by the whole Assembly with cross-community support. The Speaker acts impartially, keeps order in debates, rules on procedure, and formally represents the Assembly. Three Deputy Speakers share the chairing duties. Everything said in the Chamber is recorded in the Official Report (Hansard), which is publicly available on the Assembly’s website.
The Executive: the government side
The Assembly is the legislature — it makes laws and holds the government to account. The government itself is the Northern Ireland Executive: the First Minister, deputy First Minister and the ministers who each head one of the nine Executive departments.
Ministers are also MLAs, and ministerial posts are shared between the larger parties using a mathematical formula (d’Hondt) rather than formed by a single winning party — another expression of the power-sharing design. Our guide to how the Executive is formed explains the appointment process step by step.
Committees: where the detailed work happens
Much of the Assembly’s real scrutiny happens away from the Chamber, in its committees. Each Executive department is shadowed by a statutory committee — for example, the Committee for Health scrutinises the Department of Health. Statutory committees examine bills line by line at Committee Stage, question ministers and officials, and conduct inquiries.
Standing committees handle the Assembly’s own affairs — public accounts, procedures, standards — and ad hoc committees are set up for specific one-off tasks. Our guide to how committees work goes deeper.
Making laws
The Assembly’s core output is legislation. A proposed law — a bill — passes through seven stages, from introduction to Royal Assent, with debate, committee scrutiny and amendment along the way. Most bills are introduced by ministers (Executive bills), but individual MLAs can introduce their own (private members’ bills), and Assembly committees can too.
You can follow every bill currently before the Assembly on our bill tracker, and our guide to how a bill becomes law walks through each of the seven stages.
When the Assembly isn't sitting
The Assembly’s power-sharing design means it can only operate when the largest parties of both main designations take part. There have been several periods since 1998 when the institutions were suspended or unable to form — most recently from February 2022 to February 2024. During such periods no new Assembly laws can be passed and civil servants run departments within limits set by Westminster legislation.
Sources: Northern Ireland Act 1998; Northern Ireland Assembly (niassembly.gov.uk) — Standing Orders and public information. Entity data on this site is drawn from the Assembly’s official open-data services. Last reviewed: July 2026.