Michelle O’Neill appointed Northern Ireland’s first nationalist first minister in historic moment

Published

2 years ago

February 5, 2024

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Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill has made history by being appointed Northern Ireland’s first nationalist first minister, with US president Joe Biden commending the region’s political leaders.

A power-sharing government has returned as politicians gathered at Stormont to appoint a series of ministers to the devolved executive, two years after it collapsed over the UK government’s deal with the EU.

The Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) Emma Little-Pengelly will serve as deputy first minister.

Under the Good Friday Agreement, the deputy has an authority equal to that of the first minister.

In her speech, which began in Irish, Ms O’Neill said: “Today opens the door to the future – a shared future.

“I am honoured to stand here as first minister.”

Ms O’Neill said she was addressing an “assembly for all – Catholic, Protestant and dissenter” and that the public was “relying” on the members of Northern Ireland’s elected assembly.

She added: “We must make power sharing work because collectively, we are charged with leading and delivering for all our people, for every community.”

Ms O’Neill continued: “As an Irish republican I pledge co-operation and genuine honest effort with those colleagues who are British, of a unionist tradition and who cherish the union… Despite our different outlooks and views on the future constitutional position, the public rightly demands that we co-operate, deliver and work together.”

The first minister also acknowledged that the power-sharing coalition will “undoubtedly face great challenges” but vowed to “serve everyone equally”.

Ms O’Neill also reflected on the historic significance of her appointment and said: “For the first time ever, a nationalist takes up the position of first minister.

“That such a day would ever come would have been unimaginable to my parents and grandparents’ generation.”

She added: “This place we call home, this place we love, North of Ireland or Northern Ireland, where you can be British, Irish, both or none is a changing portrait.

“Yesterday is gone. My appointment reflects that change.”

Ms O’Neill also spoke about the impact of the UK government’s austerity measures on Northern Ireland, telling the assembly the country “cannot continue to be hamstrung by Tories in London”.

She added: “Tory austerity has badly damaged our public services. They have presided over more than a decade of shame. They have caused real suffering.

“I wish to lead an executive which has the freedom to make our own policy and spending choices.”

Ms Little-Pengelly then gave her speech, in which she recalled witnessing the “absolute devastation” from an IRA bomb.

She said: “Michelle O’Neill and I come from very different backgrounds.

“Regardless of that, for my part, I will work tirelessly to ensure that we can deliver for everyone in Northern Ireland.”

She continued: “As a young girl sitting in Markethill High School almost 30 years ago, I could never have imagined that one day I would have the opportunity to serve in such a way.

“This is a responsibility and an honour that I will never take for granted.”

She continued: “Like so many across this chamber and throughout Northern Ireland, I grew up with conflict.

“As a child of just 11, I stepped outside my Markethill home on a warm August afternoon to the absolute devastation from an IRA bomb.

“Seared within my experience is the haunting wail of alarms and our emergency services, the carpet of glass and debris, the shock, the crying and the panic that shook and destroyed the place I called home.

“As a child, I didn’t understand the politics of it – but I will never forget the fear, the hurt, the anger.”

Ms Little-Pengelly also said the “horror” of the Troubles can never be forgotten but said “while we are shaped by the past, we are not defined by it”.

Earlier, former DUP leader Edwin Poots was chosen by members of the assembly as its new speaker.

His party had refused to participate in government at Stormont, arguing that post-Brexit arrangements effectively left a trade border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

An agreement a year ago between the UK and the EU, known as the Windsor Framework, eased customs checks and other hurdles but didn’t go far enough for the DUP, which continued its boycott.

However, the DUP has since forged a deal with the UK government on post-Brexit trade, which party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says has effectively removed the so-called Irish Sea trading border.

Sir Jeffrey’s role as party leader and his resignation from the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2022 means he was ineligible to be deputy first minister.

Ms O’Neill said in her speech after being appointed first minister: “We will now begin to seize the considerable opportunities created by the Windsor Framework.

“To use dual market access to grow our exports and attract higher-quality FDI.

“The Windsor Framework also protects the thriving all-Ireland economy, and we must fully realise its huge potential.”

Ms O’Neill’s selection as first minister, made possible after she led Sinn Fein to victory in the 2022 Assembly elections, marks the first time the post has been held by a nationalist committed to seeing Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland united as one country.

US President Joe Biden said on Saturday evening he strongly supported the Assembly’s restoration and commended Northern Ireland’s political leaders.

“As I said when I visited Belfast last year to mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, the democratic institutions it established remain critical for the future of Northern Ireland, and a government that finds ways through hard problems together will draw even greater opportunity to Northern Ireland,” he said.

“I look forward to seeing the renewed stability of a power-sharing government that strengthens the peace dividend, restores public services, and continues building on the immense progress of the last decades.”

“I am confident that… Stormont’s restoration will facilitate the critical North-South and East-West relations vital to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, and ensure that Northern Ireland will continue to be vibrant and dynamic, defined by unlimited opportunity for all who call it home.”

Politics

All four UK governments ‘failed to appreciate’ scale of COVID pandemic threat – inquiry finds

Published

15 mins ago

November 20, 2025

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All four UK governments 'failed to appreciate' scale of COVID pandemic threat - inquiry finds

All four UK governments failed to appreciate the scale of the threat posed by COVID-19 or the urgency of the response the pandemic required, a damning report published on Thursday has claimed.

Baroness Heather Hallett, the chair of the inquiry, described the response to the pandemic as “too little, too late”.

Tens of thousands of lives could have been saved during the first wave of COVID-19 had a mandatory lockdown been introduced a week earlier, the inquiry also found.

Noting how a “lack of urgency” made a mandatory lockdown “inevitable”, the report references modelling data to claim there could have been 23,000 fewer deaths during the first wave in England had it been introduced a week earlier.

The UK government first introduced advisory restrictions on 16 March 2020, including self-isolation, household quarantine and social distancing.

Had these measures been introduced sooner, the report states, the mandatory lockdown which followed from 23 March might not have been necessary at all.

COVID-19 first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019, and as it developed into a worldwide pandemic, the UK went in and out of unprecedented lockdown measures for two years starting from March 2020.

Lady Hallett admitted in her summary that politicians in the government and devolved administrations were forced to make decisions where “there was often no right answer or good outcome”.

“Nonetheless,” she said, “I can summarise my findings of the response as ‘too little, too late'”.

Report goes long way to answer inquiry’s critics

This scathing report goes a long way to answer the Covid 19 Inquiry’s critics who have consistently attacked it as a costly waste of time.

They tried to undermine Lady Hallet’s attempt to understand what went wrong and how we might do better as a lame exercise that would achieve very little.

Well, we now know that Boris Johnson’s “toxic and chaotic” government could well have prevented at least 23,000 deaths had they acted sooner and with greater urgency.

The response was “too little, too late”. And that nobody in power truly understood the scale of the emerging threat or the urgency of the response it required.

The grieving families who lost loved ones in the pandemic want answers. They want names. And they want accountability.

But that is beyond the remit of this Inquiry.

The publication of the report into Module 2 will bring them no comfort, it may even cause them more distress but it will bring them closer to understanding why the UK’s response to this unprecedented health crisis was so poor.

And we can easily identify the “advisors and ministers whose alleged rule breaking caused huge distress and undermined public confidence”.

Or who was in charge of the Department of Health and Social Care, as it misled the public by giving the impression that the UK was well prepared for the pandemic when it clearly was not.

‘Toxic culture’ at the heart of UK government

The report said there was “a toxic and chaotic culture” at the heart of the UK government during the pandemic.

The inquiry heard evidence about the “destabilising behaviour of a number of individuals” – including former No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings.

It said that by failing to tackle this chaotic culture – “and, at times, actively encouraging it” – former PM Boris Johnson “reinforced a culture in which the loudest voices prevailed and the views of other colleagues, particularly women, often went ignored, to the detriment of good decision-making”.

‘Misleading assurances’

The inquiry found all four governments in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland failed to understand the urgency of response the pandemic demanded in the early part of 2020.

The report reads: “This was compounded, in part, by misleading assurances from the Department of Health and Social Care and the widely held view that the UK was well prepared for a pandemic.”

The report notes how the UK government took a “high risk” when it significantly eased restrictions in England in July 2020 – “despite scientific advisers’ concerns about the public health risks of doing so”.

Lady Hallett has made 19 key recommendations which, if followed, she believes will better protect the UK in any future pandemic and improve decision-making in a crisis.

Repeated failings ‘inexcusable’

In a statement following the publication of Thursday’s report, Lady Hallett said there was a “serious failure” by all four governments to appreciate the level of “risk and calamity” facing the UK.

She said: “The tempo of the response should have been increased. It was not. February 2020 was a lost month.”

Lady Hallett said the inquiry does not advocate for national lockdowns, which she said should have been avoided if at all possible.

She said: “But to avoid them, governments must take timely and decisive action to control a spreading virus. The four governments of the UK did not.”

Lady Hallett said none of the governments were adequately prepared for the challenges and risks that a lockdown presented, and that many of the same failings were repeated later in 2020, which she said was “inexcusable”.

She added: “Each government had ample warning that the prevalence of the virus was increasing and would continue to do so into the winter months. Yet again, there was a failure to take timely and effective action.”

Politics

Prospective CFTC chair’s nomination advances through committee

Published

56 mins ago

November 20, 2025

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Prospective CFTC chair’s nomination advances through committee

Michael Selig’s nomination to chair the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is headed for a vote on the Senate floor after clearing a committee hurdle.

In a Thursday notice, Republican leaders with the Senate Agriculture Committee said they had advanced Selig’s nomination following a Wednesday hearing. The vote was reportedly along party lines, with no Democrats supporting Selig as US President Donald Trump’s pick to replace acting Chair Caroline Pham.

Politics, Government, Congress, CFTC — *Source:* *Senate Agriculture Committee Republicans*

The prospective CFTC chair answered questions from senators on Wednesday regarding potential conflicts of interest, his policy positions on DeFi and digital assets and the dearth of leadership at the federal agency. Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal supported his confirmation, citing Selig’s support for a digital asset market structure bill moving through Congress.

Selig was Trump’s second pick to chair the CFTC following the withdrawal of Brian Quintenz’s nomination. Selig will need support from at least 50 senators to be confirmed.

Four commissioner seats are still open

Even if Selig were to be confirmed quickly, Trump has not announced any nominees to fill the two remaining Republican and two Democratic seats at the CFTC. Since September, Pham has served as the agency’s sole Republican commissioner.