Legislation Date For Doomed Stormont Ministry

Legislation designed to axe a Northern Ireland government department will be introduced by July.

The details of the plan to abolish the devolved Department for Employment and Learning (DEL)before the summer recess came out in the Assembly when the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) answered a question from UUP MLA Samuel Gardiner.

DEL is responsible for universities, job centres, colleges, promoting employment rights and training.

Its ministry is currently held by Stephen Farry, of Alliance.

In January, a plan to cut the department was revealed and Alliance has repeatedly criticised the move as being "driven by politics".

Mr Farry said DEL was being cut because "it happened to be held by an Alliance minister".

DEL's functions are expected to be divided between the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, currently headed up by Arlene Foster of the DUP, and the Department of Education, currently controlled by Sinn Fein's John O’Dowd.

Alliance leader David Ford said at the time: "That looks to me, not just as potentially seen as malicious towards the Alliance Party but is actually extremely bad government, not to keep the economy departments together but to further fragment them when we should be moving towards move streamlined government."

But Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness defended the decision, saying it was necessary to reduce "the size of the assembly and the number of departments".