Alliance leader David Ford named NI justice minister
David Ford takes charge of justice and policing in Northern Ireland on day Real IRA attacks MI5 regional headquarters
The leader of the non-sectarian Alliance party has been elected as Northern Ireland’s new justice minister.
David Ford takes charges of justice and policing on the day that the Real IRA launched an audacious attack on the regional headquarters of MI5.
He is the first locally elected politician to take the role since 1972, when the British government prorogued the Stormont parliament during the bloodiest year of the Troubles. He takes charge of a departmental budget of nearly £1.5bn and more than 4,000 employees.
Ford secured support from Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party in the assembly this afternoon, but the SDLP claimed the ministry was justly theirs under parliamentary rules drawn up following the Good Friday agreement of 1998.
The SDLP had nominated Alban Maginness, a barrister and assembly member for North Belfast. The Ulster Unionists also nominated a candidate, Danny Kennedy.
The DUP nominated Lord Morrow as chairman of the Stormont parliamentary committee, which oversees and scrutinises the justice department.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland admitted today that the security threat from republican dissidents was “severe”.
