Update from Northern Ireland:

You may recall that in the May 2022 elections, Sinn Fein became the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Per the terms of the power sharing arrangement that came out of the peace deal, this would normally have resulted in the SF leader Michelle O’Neill becoming First Minister and a representative of the second largest party, DUP, becoming Deputy First Minister.

DUP had been refusing to nominate a Deputy FM for some 20 months but on 30 January 2024 they agreed to end the boycott, and on 3 February, O’Neill was sworn in as First Minister, the first Catholic or Nationalist to hold this role. The DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly became Deputy FM.