PEOPLE Before Profit MLA Eamonn McCann arrives on the hill at Stormont to take up his seat representing the people of Foyle.
He was joined by party colleague Gerry Carroll who topped the poll for PBP in west Belfast in last week’s Assembly elections.
Eamonn, a veteran campaigner and trade unionist who has been trying for 47 years to get elected, upset the political applecart at the weekend when he robbed the SDLP of a third seat in Foyle.
Sinn Fein had parachuted Martin McGuinness into Foyle from Mid Ulster in the hope of taking a third seat.
But it was McCann who snatched the seat away after polling some 4,000 first preference votes as a People Before Profit candidate.
Speaking this morning on BBC Radio Foyle, McCann said he will be taking “the average industrial wage” and the rest will be put back into the party.
All 108 MLAs – including 29 new faces – will take up their seats this morning in the Assembly.
Negotiations will also get underway today between the five main parties for a new Programme for Government.
But the SDLP and UUP already believe the two political parties, DUP and Sinn Fein, already have a programme “pre-cooked”.
The Speaker, Mitchel McLaughlin, told the Assembly this morning that he was delighted at what he called the “significant increase” in the number of women elected to Stormont.
A total of 30 women were elected in Thursday’s poll, compared to 23 MLAs before the last Assembly was dissolved.
The Speaker said: “While we still have a long way to match the 51% of the population who are female, this is nonetheless a significant rate of progress.”
