In a historic move, Michelle O’Neill, deputy leader of Sinn Féin, is set to become the first nationalist to hold the role of first minister at the Northern Ireland Assembly. This comes after Sinn Féin became the biggest party at Stormont in the May 2022 election. Since then, O’Neill has been entitled to the role but the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had refused to join a power-sharing executive as part of its protest against post-Brexit trading regulations, preventing her from taking up the post.
However, a deal has been reached to enable the Stormont institutions to return, and the assembly will meet on Saturday when Sinn Féin will nominate O’Neill as first minister. O’Neill grew up in Clonoe, County Tyrone, where she hails from a family of prominent Irish republicans. Her assembly career began in 2007, when she joined Mr. McGuinness and Mr. Molloy as a Mid Ulster assembly member. She became her party’s spokeswoman for health and sat on the education committee.
In 2016, she became health minister, one of Stormont’s most high-profile and challenging portfolios. She was faced with mounting hospital waiting lists, a crisis in general practice, and the findings of the Bengoa report into how Northern Ireland’s healthcare is organized. Her response was a 10-year plan to transform the health service which she said would improve a system that was at “breaking point”. Although the plan lacked details and was not costed, it set out a range of priorities, including a new model of care involving a team of professionals based around GP surgeries.
On the eve of O’Neill’s 40th birthday in January 2017, Martin McGuinness resigned as deputy first minister to protest against the DUP’s handling of a botched energy scheme. At Stormont, the positions of first and deputy first minister are joint roles. If one resigns, it forces the resignation of the other, collapsing the power-sharing executive. When Mr. McGuinness died soon afterwards, O’Neill was selected to replace him as Sinn Féin deputy leader.
In May 2022, Sinn Féin became the largest party at Stormont for the first time, and repeated the achievement in local council elections the following year. O’Neill said both elections were historic and called for the DUP to end its boycott of Stormont. The republican party has traditionally objected to the monarchy, particularly in relation to its role in Northern Ireland
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