A donkey will eat anything put in front of it. In volumes. However, if you were to print out all the legislative activity going on at the NI Assembly in the last few weeks you could choke a dozen of them. Last minute Private Members’ Bills, amendments, accelerated passage and committee scrutiny is being driven on at lightening pace and has no doubt created lots of work for the Bills office at Stormont. Big issues still remain and will be rolled over into the next mandate, which may not be back on its feet in any decent capacity until about September.
On the candidate and incumbent front, another new MLA, Alastair Patterson, was co-opted in to a Ulster Unionist Party seat vacated in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, while the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness from Sinn Fein will stand in his ‘home’ constituency of Foyle after representing Mid-Ulster for many years. Former Health Minister Michael McGimpsey from the Ulster Unionist Party also announced his retirement late last night which could force party canvassers in South Belfast to break out into a little sweat.
Former East Belfast MP Naomi Long from the Alliance Party, who famously unseated the sitting First Minister Peter Robinson at the General Election in 2010, has been selected by her party once again to contest the local poll in May.
Looking south to the Republic of Ireland, it is expected that Taoiseach Enda Kenny will set a date for the election possibly next Tuesday if media reports are anything to go by. Polling day is likely to be sooner rather later, but suitable distance must be given to burying the recent Banking Inquiry report which has consumed Irish politics for a number of years now.
This will also be a very important election for us in the north to watch as the electoral success of Sinn Fein could have implications. There is potential for them to be a coalition partner in both jurisdictions on the island and in the centenary year of the 1916 Easter Rising there is a strong rallying call.