Since the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998, the Northern Ireland Assembly & Executive otherwise known as Stormont has served as the devolved legislature for Northern Ireland, surviving numerous collapses and political scandals . However how effective has an institution been that has been collapsed 50% of the time in the last decade and an estimated 40% of its 28 year existence? How effective is mandatory coalition been? And how justified is the 27% pay to £67,200 for MLAs (NI Assembly) in 2026? All of this will be discussed below.
The data speaks for itself…
We have collected and analysed data from the past 10 years of the Assembly’s legislative performance. Starting from the beginning of the 2016-2017 mandate and going right through to the 2022-2027 mandate, which is in its last year, as such this data reflects up until the 8th of May 2026 ( the date that this article was written).
Before we dig deep into the analysis of the below data, it is important to define each of our datapoints:
Motions – Non binding statements that the assembly has voted on, meaning that they are no more than calls for actions, with no legislative teeth. (We have removed procedural motions from these counts e.g. motions to change committee memberships, early day motions or exclusion motions).
Primary Bills Passed (Acts) – These are bills that are both private member bills and Executive bills that have become Acts (Became law).
Primary Bills failed or were/are in development – This repersents both Bills that have failed to pass and those that failed to get passed the development stages by the end of each mandate or are still in development within the 2022-27 mandate.
Description; Above is a bar chart outlining the number of motions versus the number of motions tabled against the number of bills passed (Acts) or the number failed or never left development per mandate. For 2016-17, 167 motions, 17 Bills Passed (Acts) and 6 failed or didn’t leave development. For 2017-22, 311 motions, 45 Bills passed (Acts) and 24 failed or didn’t leave development. And for 2022-27, so far 457 motions, 13 Bills passed (Acts) and 23 Bills are proposed or in development.
Motions galore.
The data indicates a chronic lack of legislative action, with the ratio of bills (passed and failed) to motions to stand at roughly 1 bill per 7.3 motions for the 2016-17 mandate, 1 bill per 4.5 motions for the 2017-22 mandate and 1 bill per 12.6 motions for the 2022-27 mandate so far.
It is important to remember that both the 2017-22 and 2022-27 mandates have only had 2 years out of the typical 5 year mandate.
Although it is typical that the number of motions tabled will outnumber the amount of bills introduced to the Assembly due to the months long legislative tract including numerous votes, amendments and committee scrutiny, compared with a single vote for a motion.
Further it is worth noting that this data hasn’t accounted for secondary or subordinate legislation; however primary bills is were the main legislative changes that the public care about he most are proposed. Ultimately the statistics shows particularly in this current mandate that the volume of motions to bills (1 bill per nearly 13 motions) in a short space of time to be excessive and an indicator of a dysfunctional legislator.
The reasons behind the lack of legislative action particularly in recent years.
There a multiple nuanced reasons for why the legislative output of the NI Assembly & Executive, has been so low. And we will briefly summerise these below:
A) The lack of accountability and consequence – This can be pinpointed primarily on how deeply entrenched the divisive political system is within Northern Ireland, with political positions being traditionally green and orange – Nationalism and Unionism, (Although this is changing with the emergence of centre parties such as Alliance and the Greens who do not run on a constitutionally centred ticket) instead of your traditional left-right spectrum. Further not only is the population divided this way but also geographically.
As such it could be theorized that political accountability in Northern Irish politics is lower as the electorate is less violatile in their voting preferences, with entrenched voting behaviour within families that is most prevailant particularly amongst an older, ageing population which Northern Ireland Possesses. As such the need for politicians and parties to progress the legislative agenda in terms of for public image, could be less of a priority due to lower consequences i.e. high chances of getting re-elected than in a Westminister system of politics.
B) Mandatory coalition and bad governance – The Northern Ireland Executive is made of 11 ministers who oversee 9 departments. However mandatory power sharing means that the devolved government is headed up by a first and deputy first minister, who have identical power but come from the largest unionist and nationalist parties, with the remaining ministers being appointed from the largest 4 or 5 political parties in the NI Assembly.
Whilst mandatory coalition and power sharing, ended decades of violence known as ‘the troubles’, the makeup of the NI Executive, means there is often serious disagreements and in fighting amongst the devolved government. This lead to decision making paralysis, as executive ministers attempt to find common ground and as a result subsequent programmes of Government often fail to be fully realised, leading to policy areas such as equality laws, health etc being neglected for years in favour of politically divisive ‘green and orange issues’.
Lastly this feeds into the first point about little political accountability and consequence, as there is virtually little need for Executive Ministers to undertake and progress major policy projects or take unpopular but needed decisions to reduce overspends or control budgets within their respective government departments. As the same political parties nearly always get elected election after election, without the need for substantive performance in Government.
Purpose of motions.
Motions are an important and often invaluable political mechanism which allows individual Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and political parties to bring awareness to issues within political discourse. Motions trigger a debate, which can be useful to gauge political opinions and appeal to the NI Executive to consider enacting policy changes. From a public affairs perspective, they are often an invaluable tool allowing public affairs professionals to gauge political opinion around the particular issue they are advocating for, and allows stakeholder mapping and analysis to be conducted, where the views and positions of different political parties and individual politicians can be assessed.
However it seems recently that motions are often been overused and misused, in absence of actual legislative bills, they are being used in times of political deadlock as a tool to make the NI Assembly look Legislatively productive. Particularly at present it seems motions are being used for electioneering, as with approximately a year until the 2027 Assembly Elections, and with no legislative time to introduce new executive bills.
Pay Rise.
MLAs recently were awarded a pay rise form £53,000 to £67,200, a 27% pay rise in April 2026 from the independent Remunerations board (BBC). This brought widespread public outrage, as with the cost of living coupled with rising inflation and minimal pay rises especially within the public sector.
The official justification was to bring MLA’s pay into line with other politicians in the other devolved regions. But considering the NI Executive at current spending is projected to have an overspend of £800m to £1bn (BelTel) and a recent loan from the UK Treasury, the optics of this pay rise is hard to ignore.
Whilst there is the argument that public office is a pofession that is naturally unstable due to continuous election cycles. This is hard to justify as a reason due to the stated above and the abysmal legislative performance of the Northern Ireland Devolved Government.
Conclusion.
It is important to note, that this article in no way is meant to diminish the important role motions play, in raising important and vital issues into the political conscience, not to mention the media attention and public awareness that motions can bring
Nor does this ignore the fact or dismiss the multiple important and impactful pieces of legislation that have been progressed in recent years.
But zooming out, it is clear the Northern Ireland Political system has been ineffective and lackluster at delivering meaningful governance, evidenced by the lack of substantive legislation and in our opinion an overuse of motions. As such it is no wonder that people feel disenfranchised by Northern Irish politics, and of which the recent pay rise further entrenches the resentment and dissuades people further from engaging in politics.