The Executive of the 1st Northern Ireland Assembly (1 July 1998 – 14 October 2002) was, under the terms of the

Northern Ireland Act 1998 __NOTOC__ The Northern Ireland Act 1998 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which allowed Westminster to devolve power to Northern Ireland, after decades of direct rule. It renamed the New Northern Ireland Assembly, established b ...

, a power-sharing coalition. Following the first election to the new Northern Ireland Assembly the

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule m ...

, the

Social Democratic and Labour Party The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland ...

and

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...

all took up their ministerial posts and formed an executive, the Democratic Unionist Party refused to attend meetings of the Executive Committee in protest at Sinn Féin's participation. Full power was devolved to the Executive on 2 December 1999. This power was revoked by the Secretary of State on four separate occasions. The first was for a period of 3 months from 11 February 2000 – 30 May 2000 because of no arms decommissioning. The next two times were for periods of 24 hours on 10 August 2001 to help deal with arms negotiations and 21 September 2001 following the Holy Cross dispute. The final suspension came on 14 October 2002 after the

Stormontgate Stormontgate is the name given to the controversy surrounding an alleged Provisional Irish Republican Army spy ring and intelligence-gathering operation based in Stormont, the parliament building of Northern Ireland. The term was coined in Oc ...

controversy surrounding an alleged

Provisional Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...

spy ring based in Stormont.

1st Executive of Northern Ireland

1st Executive of Northern Ireland

See also