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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

An image showing the border control entrance to Gibraltar from La Línea in Spain (image by Guy Percival, from Public Domain Picture)
This article updates a previous article on the negotiations around the Gibraltar Protocol. Gibraltar provides an interesting point of comparison with Northern Ireland in terms of arrangements following the…
A slide showing a dictionary definition of the word 'consent'
  John Locke once wrote, ‘we should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, signs of our ideas only,…
Royal Courts of Justice, Belfast, incorporating the High Court (Image: Suzanne Mischyshyn, Creative Commons)
The Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol (‘the Protocol’) was the subject of a judicial review challenge at the High Court of Justice in Belfast. The hearing, which stretched over several days,…

Democracy and Government

The plenary chamber of the Northern Ireland Assembly
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…
Students from Shimna College visiting the Northern Ireland Assembly
The Assembly Education Service engaged with more than 80,000 young people during the last mandate. The aim of this work is to inform young people about the work of…
An image of the Northern Ireland Assembly
Yesterday, we published a post which examined the 2016 Assembly election results in terms of candidates and voter turnout. This post, the second in the Election 2016 series, will…

Justice

Image of girl using mobile phone: Increased access to social media, particularly via personal devices, presents opportunities but also risks (Image: Creative Commons Zero)
Rapid technological changes have caused the norms and methods of children’s sexual behaviour to evolve. Much screen-based media use now involves accessing interactive social networking sites such as Facebook…

Planning

The merging of environment and agriculture
Local government underwent significant structural change in 2015 with the number of councils reducing from 26 to 11, and the transfer of many functions from central to local government….

Statistics and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

A line graph showing the number of COVID-19 vaccinations
By Aaron McMurray & James Bamford This dashboard has been prepared by the Assembly Research and Information Service (RaISe) to visualise data describing the spread of COVID-19 in Northern…
A black and white image showing a row of glasses and a bottle
Overview The latest figures published by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (February 2021) show that the number of alcohol-specific deaths in 2019 was the highest ever…
A screenshot showing the distribution of foodbanks in NI
Foodbanks are an increasingly useful resource for many in Northern Ireland. They provide a valuable service to communities and are continually helping to feed those in need. An interactive…