Northern Ireland Assembly shuts to the public, but not to MLAs

Assembly Speaker Alex Maskey said in a statement on Monday night that the Assembly Commission – the cross-party committee of MLAs which oversees the running of the building – had decided on the closure “in light of the public health situation”.

The Assembly, which until recent days had continued to host public tours and events, said that “no public tours, events or visitor activities will take place and members of the public will not be permitted access into Parliament Buildings until further notice”.

However, in line with other legislatures, MLAs have still resolved to continue to sit in the chamber for the twice-weekly plenary sessions and take decisions – something which is likely to involve rushed emergency legislation and ministerial statements on the situation over coming weeks.

Mr Maskey’s statement said: “It is important that the Assembly continues to meet to carry out its political and legislative responsibilities at this difficult time.

“Therefore, Assembly business will continue and can be watched via our live streams: https://niassembly.tv”.

Mr Maskey also said that the Assembly Business Committee – another cross-party body of MLAs who decide what is debated in the chamber – also met on Monday evening and that it had “agreed to keep Assembly business under review”.

That may hint at significant changes to the Assembly order paper, and may have an impact on the implementation of the New Decade, New Approach deal which restored devolution in January.

Parts of that deal involve time-bound commitments to pass legislation in several areas – most significantly, Irish language and Ulster-Scots legislation – which now may be significantly delayed if it is decided that only emergency business should be transacted.

On Monday, most Sinn Fein MLAs decided not to sit in the Assembly chamber and those who did were spaced out on the party’s benches in line with the guidelines on social distancing to disrupt the spread of Covid-19.