Foyle MLA Mark H Durkan was the former Environment Minister in the 2016 Executive
In the previous Executive, SDLP Foyle MLA Mark H Durkan held the Environment portfolio.
But in the 2020 Executive, not a single Derry MLA was given a department to look after.
Mr Durkan’s party colleague and deputy leader Nicola Mallon has become the Minister for the Department of Infrastructure.
DUP MLA Edwin Poots is the new Agriculture and Environment Minister while Alliance Leader Naomi Long is the Minister for Justice.
Sinn Fein’s Deidre Hargey has been given the responsibility for the Department of Communities which overseas welfare reform.
Her party colleague Conor Murphy will be in charge of Stormont’s purse strings as he becomes Finance Minister.
Former DUP MEP Diane Dodds become Economy Minister and Peter Weir will look after Education.
But the biggest job falls to former UUP leader Robin Swann who has been appointed the Health Minister who will have to sort pay for nurses and health workers, slash waiting lists and get more nurses into the hospital wards.
DUP leader Arlene Foster returns as First Minister and Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill becomes Deputy First Minister.
Addressing the assembly, Mrs Foster said the politicians have “many differences”.
“Michelle’s narrative of the past 40 years could not be more different to mine,” she said.
“I’m not sure we will ever agree on much about the past, but we can agree there was too much suffering, and that we cannot allow society to drift backwards and allow division to grow.”
DUP First Minister Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill
Michelle O’Neill told MLAs back in the chamber for the first time in three years that it was her “sincere wish that 2020 brings real change”.
She also pledged to immediately resolve the pay parity row that has led to industrial strike action among health workers.
She said: “I see no contradiction in declaring and delivering on our firm commitment to power sharing with unionism in the Stormont Assembly while also initiating a mature and inclusive debate about new political arrangements which examine Ireland’s future beyond Brexit.
“Similarly, there is no contradiction in unionism working the existing constitutional arrangements while taking its rightful place in the conversation about what a new Ireland would look like.
“We can do this while maintaining our independent distinct political identities and working in the best interests of all of the people.”
The new Speaker of the Assembly is Sinn Fein’s Alex Maskey.
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