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.

With the North’s 108 Assembly members due to gather at Stormont on May 15 for the first of two bids to form a power-sharing executive this year, Mr Hain said the onus was on the parties to decide if devolution would return to the province or direct rule from Westminster would continue.

“We have reached the point where the parties must decide how they want Northern Ireland governed,” he said.

“They can have devolved government restored and an end to locally unaccountable direct rule.

“But if this opportunity is not taken, then the Assembly will cease to meet, MLA salaries and allowances will stop and the May 2007 election will be indefinitely postponed.

“The bill sets an immovable deadline of November 24, 2006 for getting back to devolution.

“Otherwise, as the prime minister and Taoiseach have said, we will have to move on.”

Under the bill, which the governments hope will become law on May 8, the Assembly’s key task will be to elect a First and Deputy First Minister and to nominate ministers under the power-sharing system used to form an executive.

If ministers are selected and affirm the pledge of office by November 24, the Northern Ireland Secretary will sanction the full restoration of the devolved institutions under the Northern Ireland Act 2000.