Sinn Féin’s Mitchel McLaughlin has been elected as the new speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Earlier, First Minister Peter Robinson said his party would honour its agreement to support the election of the assembly’s first Sinn Féin.
Mr McLaughlin said he was conscious of his position and that he was there to uphold impartiality at all times.
Mr Robinson said the DUP would back the Derry man because Sinn Féin had now honoured its obligations on welfare reform.
There were two other candidates: John Dallat was nominated by the SDLP and Roy Beggs by the Ulster Unionists.
The DUP’s William Hay retired as speaker in October 2014 due to ill health.
He will officially take his seat in the House of Lords on Tuesday.
The two biggest parties previously agreed that Sinn Féin would take over the speaker’s role half-way through the current Assembly term.
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