Worth Restoring? Taking Stock of the Northern Ireland Assembly

Abstract

The ongoing and almost record-breaking hiatus in devolved government in Northern Ireland has brought the sustainability of the region's Assembly into sharp focus. As parties in Northern Ireland consider their options for restoring (and possibly reforming) the devolved institutions, this article takes stock of the Northern Ireland Assembly's merits and demerits. It is argued that, amidst the public's understandable exasperation with the current stalemate, it is easy to forget that the Assembly operated for a decade without suspension (2007–2017) and performed some functions reasonably well. This, of course, is not to detract from the institution's serious shortcomings, though it is argued that the worst of these could be mitigated via institutional reform. Crucially, institutional inertia is not an option. Should parties fail to address the need for institutional reform, commentators may well be right to question whether the Assembly is worth restoring.