Northern Ireland Executive

The Northern Ireland Executive is the devolved government of Northern Ireland, an administrative branch of the legislature – the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is answerable to the assembly and was initially established according to the terms of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which followed the Good Friday Agreement (or Belfast Agreement). The executive is referred to in the legislation as the Executive Committee of the assembly and is an example of consociationalist ("power-sharing") government.

The Northern Ireland Executive consists of the First Minister and deputy First Minister and various ministers with individual portfolios and remits. The main assembly parties appoint most ministers in the executive, except for the Minister of Justice who is elected by a cross-community vote. It is one of three devolved governments in the United Kingdom, the others being the Scottish and Welsh governments.

In January 2017, the then deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness resigned in protest over the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal and the Northern Ireland Executive consequently collapsed. The governing of Northern Ireland fell to civil servants in a caretaker capacity until January 2020, when the parties signed the New Decade, New Approach agreement and an Executive was subsequently established. When Democratic Unionist Party First Minister Paul Givan resigned in line with his party's protest over the Northern Ireland Protocol, The Northern Ireland Executive collapsed again. No agreement on power-sharing was made after the 2022 Assembly election, and from October 2022 to February 2024, Northern Ireland was governed by civil servants. On 3 February 2024, Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill was appointed First Minister, the first Irish nationalist to be appointed to the position, with DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly as deputy First Minister.