Most democracies treat government shutdowns as a crisis. The United States watches with anxiety as congressional budget deadlines approach, fearful of a shutdown. The EU sighed in relief in 2020 when Belgium re-established a coalition after more than 650 days without a functioning government. However, in Northern Ireland, government collapse is routine. Since 1999, Stormont, the seat of Northern Ireland’s devolved Assembly and Executive, has been suspended six times—sometimes for days, sometimes for years. The Northern Irish Executive has been absent for more than 40 percent of its existence. During these periods, no laws are passed, reforms stall, and accountability disappears. The system must be restructured to ensure democracy triumphs over identity politics.
The instability of the Northern Irish government stems from a convoluted history. The Troubles, beginning in the 1960s and lasting through the 1990s, were a period of violent conflict between Protestant unionists, who sought to remain part of the United Kingdom, and Catholic nationalists, who aimed for reunification with the Republic of Ireland. Bombings and assassinations became a grim part of daily life, resulting in over 3,500 deaths between 1969 and 2001. The Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 sought to end the bloodshed by establishing institutions grounded in shared governance, disarmament, human rights protections, and cross-community consent in legislation. One of its cornerstones was a devolved Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, allowing the nation a degree of self-governance from Westminster. The Assembly and Executive were designed to ensure power-sharing between the region’s divided identities. The Executive is led by a First Minister and Deputy First Minister, one unionist and one nationalist, who share equal authority and must act jointly on all major decisions. If one resigned, both offices would collapse. This measure guaranteed collaboration, but it also planted fragility at the heart of the system.
Identity politics are similarly embedded in the Assembly. From the moment members take their seats, the Good Friday Agreement mandates that Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) have to designate themselves as “unionist,” “nationalist,” or “other.” The Assembly has 90 members in total, and many key votes require support from both unionist and nationalist blocs. The Good Friday Agreement’s Petition of Concern was designed to stop either community from using its majority to pass laws that might discriminate against the other. It was meant to be a safeguard for minorities: If 30 members sign it, a bill can only pass with support from both blocs. In practice, it became a political tool, often used to block reforms rather than protect communities. Between 2011 and 2016, it was used 115 times, often to hinder policies such as same-sex marriage or welfare reforms. Moreover, the legislative core symbiotically binds the opposing leaders together, meaning if one resigns, the other is forced out, therefore collapsing the Executive. In a system polarized between the Sinn Féin party’s push for Irish unity and the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) defense of the Union, walking away is a viable political strategy to push through the party’s agenda because collapsing the Executive allows parties to block legislation or stall reforms they oppose.
Thus began a cyclical pattern of government collapses due to political disagreements. In January 2017, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness resigned as Deputy First Minister after the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, accusing DUP First Minister Arlene Foster of refusing to take responsibility. His resignation toppled Foster and left Northern Ireland without ministers for three years, meaning no new laws could be passed on health, education, planning, or social welfare. Civil servants continued public service but ultimately had no power to push through substantive reform. The Court of Appeal’s 2018 Buick case made that clear: It found that a senior civil servant had acted unlawfully by approving a waste incinerator project without a minister in place to sign off on it. The ruling showed that without political leaders, civil servants could handle daily administration but could not make significant decisions or push for real reform.
Brexit further weaponized identity politics in Northern Ireland. In February 2022, DUP First Minister Paul Givan resigned to protest the Northern Ireland Protocol, which created customs checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Unionists saw these “Irish Sea borders” as undermining Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom by separating it from the rest of the UK market, while nationalists viewed them as a practical way to preserve trade and avoid a hard land border with the Republic of Ireland. The dispute showed how questions of trade quickly turned into questions of identity. Givan’s resignation forced Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill from office and collapsed the Executive once again. Stormont only returned in January 2024 after the Safeguarding the Union deal adjusted trade rules to ease unionist concerns.
These collapses carry immense social costs. When the Executive shut down in 2017, health reform ground to a halt. By the time ministers returned three years later, delays for hospital treatment, specialist appointments, and diagnostic tests had become the worst within the United Kingdom. Data from December 2022 show 51 percent of patients in Northern Ireland had been waiting for more than 52 weeks for assessment or treatment, compared to 5.4 percent in England. The slowdown in social progress also repeated during the 2022–2024 government shutdown. With no government in place to set budgets or direct resources, the Education Authority warned in June 2025 that 164 children with special education needs might not have a seat in school in September without urgent intervention. These examples show that Stormont’s shutdowns do not just stall politics; they also stall the provision of public goods and essential services in Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland could learn from other countries that handle government disagreements without full shutdowns. Belgium’s more than 650 days without a government were supported by caretaker ministers who kept budgets and services afloat. Northern Ireland has no such safety net. A collapse in Northern Ireland means no ministers, no laws, and no accountability. Reform is imperative to preventing dysfunction from becoming the norm during political disagreements. To build a system that can withstand political tension, Northern Ireland must reshape how power is shared and how the government endures during crises.
The first step is to end the resignation rule: When one leader quits, the Executive should not fall. Instead, a caretaker First Minister should remain in place to keep the government running until a replacement is chosen. This would stop political walkouts from bringing the entire system to a standstill. The second is to ease the identity rules that force every MLA to register as “unionist,” “nationalist,” or “other.” Reducing the weight of these designations in key votes would make it harder for mechanisms like the Petition of Concern to be used as partisan vetoes. This would encourage cooperation based on policy rather than identity. Finally, Northern Ireland needs safeguards to keep the government running during a deadlock. Automatic mediation could require parties to restart talks, while caretaker ministers would keep public services operating until a new Executive is formed. These measures would prevent everyday governance from freezing during political disputes and help restore public trust in Stormont’s ability to deliver.
None of these reforms would erase Northern Ireland’s sectarian division, but they would stop those divisions from collapsing the entire government and allow social reforms and progress to continue, even if religious and nationalist arguments get caught in a stalemate. While the Good Friday Agreement ended the conflict, the task now is to build institutions that can endure. Without changing these political institutions, Northern Ireland will remain locked in cycles of peace without progress.