Assembly poll could be put off to 2008

THE North’s next Assembly election could be delayed for a year if power-sharing is restored by November, the British Government signalled yesterday.

Under emergency legislation introduced in Parliament yesterday recalling the Assembly on May 15, ministers held out the possibility that elections scheduled for May 2007 could be put off to 2008 at Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain’s discretion.

This would enable any power-sharing executive formed this year involving the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin time to bed down, instead of jumping quickly into an election within months of its being established.