Governing Northern Ireland: Six months of power-sharing

Ministers returned to Stormont in January 2020 after three years during which the Northern Ireland assembly did not sit, there was no executive and the NI Civil Service ran Northern Ireland while policy problems piled up. The new power-sharing executive has had to confront those problems, implement the findings of the inquiry into the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, prepare for the implementation of the NI protocol, and now marshal Northern Ireland’s response to the Covid-19 crisis.

How have the first six months of the new power-sharing arrangements worked? How is the executive performing? How can it meet the twin challenges of the end of Brexit transition and the COVID-19? And what can be done to improve governance in Northern Ireland and deal with the weaknesses revealed in the RHI report?

To discuss these issues, Jill Rutter, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government, welcomes:

• Rt Hon Julian Smith MP, former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
• Sam McBride, Political Editor of News Letter and Northern Ireland Political Editor of inews
• Professor Duncan Morrow, Professor in Politics at Ulster University
• Ann Watt, Director of Pivotal, Northern Ireland’s public policy think tank

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