The next Northern Ireland Assembly should be reduced from 108 members to about 80, the Irish and British governments were urged today.
As Northern Ireland's parties prepared for a review of the Belfast Agreement, which could take place later this month, the cross community Alliance Party set out what changes it believed should be made.
The party, which has six Assembly members, suggested the number of constituencies in Northern Ireland should be reduced from 18 to 12, returning between six and eight MLAs under the proportional representation system.
The document, which was launched by party leader Mr David Ford, also called for changes to the voting system at the Assembly, replacing it with a weighted majority system.
During devolution, Assembly members were forced to declare whether they were unionists, nationalists or cross community.
However the votes of cross community MLAs, like Alliance's, did not count in key decisions such as the election of First and Deputy First Ministers which required a majority of unionists plus a majority of nationalists.
In 2001, Alliance had to redesignate some of its members as unionists to facilitate the election of Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble and Mr Mark Durkan of the nationalist SDLP to the two top government posts after they failed to secure enough unionist support at the first attempt.
The Alliance also proposed:
- The power-sharing executive at Stormont should be formed by negotiation between parties and ratified by a weighted majority vote in the Assembly to ensure cross community composition.
- The number of devolved government departments should be reviewed to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness and be linked to the review of public administration in Northern Ireland.
- The Office of First and Deputy First Minister should be streamlined, with some of its functions reallocated to other ministries.
- The Assembly should be allowed to negate any ministerial decision through a weighted majority vote.
PA