Junior Minister (Northern Ireland)

[3][4][5] The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) called for the immediate abolition of the junior minister positions in its 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election manifesto.

The position is similar to that of a parliamentary private secretary in the House of Commons, providing political support to the Minister within the department.

As of May 2011, OFMDFM officials were drawing up a code of conduct and enabling processes to facilitate the creation of the posts.

[9] None had been published by October 2011, meaning that the posts had not been created by the Northern Ireland Assembly up to that point.

However, they were declared as public offices in the register of members' interests on 29 June 2011 and 7 October 2011.