APN 1 - 16/21: Arrangements for giving the undertaking and signing the Roll of Membership in the Chamber on Thursday 12 May 2016

1. Members should be in their places by 11.55am at the latest and there will be no Prayers or formal Speaker’s procession.

2. The Clerk will arrive at the Table at noon and will read the formal notice of the first meeting of the Assembly.  He will then invite the Speaker to take the Chair.

3. The Speaker will announce the transitional procedure that he has determined for giving the undertaking and the arrangements for signing the Roll of Membership. Having not stood for re-election, Speaker McLaughlin is not required to sign the documents.

4. Parties will then be called in alphabetical order (see below) to come forward, through the ‘Aye’ lobby, as if a division were in progress.  Members should emerge through the door nearest the Table two at a time.  Clerks will be in the lobby to assist with the process.

5. The undertaking should be given at the first table in front of the Speaker’s table with Members entering the date, their name and signature under a copy of the undertaking.

6. Members will then move to the second table to sign the Roll of Membership entering the date, their name, their signature and their designation (“Nationalist”, “Unionist” or “Other”). At this point a Member will be deemed to have taken their seat.

7. There will be two of each document at each table enabling two Members to sign at the same time.

8. A Member may not sign the Assembly’s Roll of Membership unless they have given the undertaking in accordance with the procedure outlined by the Speaker. The Clerk to the Assembly and Director of Parliamentary Services will be in attendance to assist Members.

9. Members should then return to their places, using the ‘No’ lobby if expedient.

10. When all Members present have signed the Roll, the Assembly will be suspended until 2.00/2.30pm to allow the undertaking and Roll to be examined to ensure that Members have taken their seats in accordance with Standing Orders and the Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Act 2016. 

11. A Member who has not signed both the Roll and the undertaking will be deemed not to have taken their seat.

12. A Member not entering a designation will be deemed to be designated “Other”.

Order of signing the Roll

• Alliance Party
• Democratic Unionist Party
• Green Party
• People Before Profit Alliance
• Sinn Féin
• Social Democratic and Labour Party
• Traditional Unionist Voice
• Ulster Unionist Party
• Independent Member
  - Claire Sugden

Undertaking by members of
the Northern Ireland Assembly who are elected at the 2016 election

 I undertake:

—to support the rule of law unequivocally in word and deed
and to support all efforts to uphold it;

—to work collectively with the other members of the Assembly
to achieve a society free of paramilitarism;

—to challenge all paramilitary activity and associated
criminality;

—to call for, and to work together with the other members of
the Assembly to achieve, the disbandment of all paramilitary
organisations and their structures;

—to challenge paramilitary attempts to control communities;

—to support those who are determined to make the transition
away from paramilitarism;

—to accept no authority, direction or control on my political
activities other than my democratic mandate alongside my own
personal and party judgment.