Deal hot house to be justice home

By Mark Devenport BBC NI Political Editor

The office block was where the Good Friday Agreement was negotiated

The building where Northern Ireland's Good Friday Agreement was negotiated 11 years ago is to become the headquarters of an NI Department of Justice.

The political parties are continuing to negotiate when policing and justice powers should be devolved.

But the Stormont authorities have been ensuring any new minister can start work on day one at Castle Buildings.

A new local justice minister is expected to based there, along with the bulk of his or her 500 strong staff.

Castle Buildings is a fairly non-descript, some might even say ugly, office block on the Stormont estate.

But its place in history will always be assured as the building where the Good Friday Agreement was finalised after months of difficult negotiations.

In recent weeks, the direct rule ministers, Shaun Woodward and Paul Goggins, moved their offices up the hill to the nearby Stormont House, a stylish building built for the old the Stormont speaker back in the 1920s.

Further up the hill at the Northern Ireland Assembly building, staff have also been busy identifying working space for the future justice minister - two offices on the first floor have now been set aside for the proposed department.

Some assembly members have been keen to see government departments moved elsewhere in Northern Ireland, in order to spread civil service employment opportunities around.

However, it was always unlikely that such a sensitive department as justice would be located far from Stormont.

The latest moves may answer the question about where justice powers will be wielded from, but we still do not know when it will happen.

A further push to complete devolution is expected this autumn with some sources pointing to February as a potential end date for the new justice minister taking office.

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version