List of members of the 4th Northern Ireland Assembly


The fourth Northern Ireland Assembly was the unicameral devolved legislature of Northern Ireland following the 2011 assembly election on 5 May 2011. This iteration of the elected Assembly convened for the first time on 12 May 2011 in Parliament Buildings in Stormont, and ran for a full term.
The election saw 18 Assembly constituencies return six Members of the Legislative Assembly each. The Democratic Unionist Party, led by Peter Robinson, remained the largest unionist party and the largest overall. Sinn Féin, led by Gerry Adams, remained the largest Irish nationalist party and the second largest overall. As per the Belfast Agreement and the St Andrews Agreement, a power-sharing coalition was then formed with the DUP, Sinn Féin, the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. William Hay was elected as Speaker in the first sitting of the Assembly. Following Hay's retirement, Mitchel McLaughlin was elected as the first nationalist Speaker in October 2014.
The UUP, led by Tom Elliott, and the SDLP, led by Margaret Ritchie, secured fewer seats than in the previous assembly. The Alliance Party, led by David Ford, emerged from the election with an increased mandate after securing an additional seat. The four main parties which sat outside of the Northern Ireland Executive and thereby served unofficially in opposition were the Green Party in Northern Ireland, the Traditional Unionist Voice, NI21 and the United Kingdom Independence Party.
More than three quarters of the members of the 3rd Northern Ireland Assembly were re-elected to the 4th: 83 MLAs had been members for all or part of the Assembly’s previous term. This included 11 individuals who became MLAs in the previous Assembly by virtue of co-option. Twenty of the MLAs elected in 2011 were women. 25 new MLAs were elected to the Assembly, 23% of the total.

Party strengths

Graphical representation

Leadership

This is a list of MLAs elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election, sorted by party.
Not to be confused: Paul Girvan and Paul Givan are different people, although both were co-opted to replace retiring Democratic Unionist members of the last Assembly. Roy Beggs, Jr. is the son of the Ulster Unionist Roy Beggs, a former Assembly member for North Antrim and former MP for East Antrim in the British House of Commons. Similarly Mark H. Durkan is the nephew of the former SDLP leader Mark Durkan, who left the Assembly after his election in 2010 as MP for Foyle.

MLAs by constituency

The list is given in alphabetical order by constituency.

New members elected in May 2011

Twenty-five members of the third Assembly who were sitting at its dissolution on 24 March 2011 were succeeded by new members after the election of 5 May 2011. Seventeen sitting members did not present themselves for re-election and another eight were defeated at the polls. One re-elected member had been elected with a different affiliation in 2007.
The numbers indicate the percentage of votes each member received in the first round of counting under the Single Transferable Vote in the 2011 election, and the round which decided his or her election or defeat.
This is a sortable table arranged alphabetically by the new member's surname. In some constituencies where it is not possible to couple a single outgoing member by party with a single successor, the incoming members are arranged alphabetically and the outgoing members are arranged arbitrarily.

Member returning with a different affiliation

, originally elected from East Londonderry as an Ulster Unionist, although not re-nominated by the UUP in 2011, stood successfully for re-election as an independent. This reduced the UUP's strength from 2007, while keeping independent strength in the Assembly at one. McClarty decided not to re-join the UUP after his re-election.

Changes