MICHELLE O’NEILL got to work today in her first full day as Northern Ireland’s first minister as the Stormont assembly returned after a two-year boycott by unionists.

Sinn Fein leader Ms O’Neill made history as the first Irish Republican to lead Northern Ireland’s government in the restored power-sharing arrangements with unionists created by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

“This is a historic day which represents a new dawn,” Ms O’Neill said. 

“That such a day would ever come would have been unimaginable to my parents’ and grandparents’ generation. Because of the Good Friday Agreement that old state that they were born into is gone.”

Ms O’Neill, whose party won the most seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly in the 2022 elections, will share power with deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly from the Democratic Unionist Party. 

Government business ground to a halt over the past two years after the DUP refused to take their seats in Stormont after the elections.

The DUP claimed the reason for its boycott was objections to trade restrictions for goods coming into Northern Ireland from Britain. 

Northern Ireland’s 1.9 million people were left without a functioning administration as the cost of living soared and public services were strained.

The British government agreed to new changes last week that would eliminate routine checks and paperwork for most goods entering Northern Ireland.

The British government also agreed to give Northern Ireland more than £3 billion for its battered public services.

Ms O’Neill is reported as saying that she expects to see a vote on Irish unity in the next decade.

Asked about the comments on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Westminster’s Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “I don’t want to speculate on that.

“What is actually fantastic is to see Stormont back up and running.”

But last week the Communist Party of Ireland denounced the institution as “an institutionalism of sectarianism, where nationalist is pitted against unionist, in a futile pursuit of gaining dominance over each other.

“Stormont’s function is to disguise the reality of where political power lies. The British ruling class maintains executive power. 

“The returned executive will continue with the same policies as before ie overseeing the implementation of British government cuts.”

The party added that it remained “committed to building a socialist united Irish republic.

“We call for a British declaration to withdraw from Ireland, allowing Irish people to decide our own destiny by establishing a national democratic state.”