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A blog from the Northern Ireland Assembly Research and Information Service

Governance Blog Archive

Here you will find an archive of Governance Blog articles published before 1 May 2022, divided into their relevant categories.

Brexit

A photograph of the Houses of Parliament
A high profile consequence of the continuing failure to establish an Executive and fully functioning Assembly was the legislative passage this week of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and…
A photograph of some books showing part of the growing collection of Brexit-related publications in the Assembly Library
Please note: This version of the Brexit and Northern Ireland reading list has now been superseded. For the very latest version, please see here. The Assembly’s Research and Information…
The Flag of Europe (Image: Bob, under Creative Commons)
Please note: This version of the Brexit and Northern Ireland reading list has now been superseded. For the very latest version, please see here. The Assembly’s Research and Information…

Democracy and Government

A photo showing the Chairperson (Kellie Armstrong MLA) and Deputy Chairperson (Megan Fearon MLA) of the Northern Ireland Assembly Women's Caucus (photo courtesy of Politics Plus)
Please note that more up-to-date statistics on gender representation can be found in the RaISe research paper Who Runs Northern Ireland? A Summary of Statistics Relating to Gender and…
A photograph of the Houses of Parliament
A high profile consequence of the continuing failure to establish an Executive and fully functioning Assembly was the legislative passage this week of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and…
An image of the Northern Ireland Assembly Library
This week is Libraries Week so we thought we would provide an insight into the Northern Ireland Assembly Library, its work and the collection that it manages. The Assembly…

Justice

An image of a statue of a woman holding the scales of justice
In September 2021, Clare Bailey MLA introduced the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Bill to the Assembly. The Bill passed Second Stage on 12 October 2021 and would require…
A black and white image of a woman with her hand covering her face
In 2016 a man called Lance Hart shot his wife Claire and daughter Charlotte outside a swimming pool in Lincolnshire, England, before turning his shotgun on himself. Some of…
Image of a man holding a smartphone
    Last month, a new law came into force in England and Wales making upskirting a criminal offence. Upskirting involves taking a photo or video under a person’s…

Planning

An aerial view of the Peace Bridge in Derry/Londonderry
This article explores the temporary planning measures introduced as a response to COVID-19 across the UK and Republic of Ireland (ROI). Some of these measures have, and will, require…
An image of the Peace Bridge in Derry/Londonderry
This blog article examines the similarities and differences between the planning systems north and south of the border on the island of Ireland. It is based on a more…
Image of a planned urban landscape: Local development planning is now with local councils
The planning system has undergone much change recently, so what are the new structures and how has the balance of responsibility shifted between central and local government?…

Statistics and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Multiple Deprivation Measure 2017 at SOA level and Parliamentary Constituency Boundaries
Measures which show the spatial distribution of deprivation have been used in Northern Ireland since the 1990s, and play a prominent role in terms of informing the targeting of…
A photograph showing a selection of titles from the 100 classification in the Assembly Library; in the Dewey Decimal system, 100 is used to classify philosophy and psychology
Our blog has just published its 100th article. The Assembly Research and Information Service launched Research Matters in May 2016 in order to provide short, topical articles on recent…
Map2. The service areas of the cancer centre in Northern Ireland, prior to the opening of the North West Cancer Centre.
To mark World GIS day, this article will look at how the Northern Ireland Assembly uses GIS to communicate data in effective and engaging ways. What is Geographic Information…