Mission
The Assembly’s mission is to promote co-operation between political representatives in Britain and Ireland for the benefit of the people they represent, building on the close relationships established in recent years between politicians throughout the nations of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland.
A brief history
The Assembly was established in 1990 as the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body, to provide a link between the two Houses of the UK Parliament and the two Houses of the Oireachtas.
The first plenary session took place in London in February 1990.
In April 1998 the Belfast/ Good Friday Agreement between the UK Government and the Government of Ireland provided for the establishment of a British-Irish Council bringing together the governments of the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It further provided that “the elected institutions of the members [of the Council] will be encouraged to develop interparliamentary links, perhaps building on the British-Irish Interparliamentary Body”.
In pursuit of this aim, in 2001 membership of the Body was enlarged to include the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru (the Welsh Assembly), the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Isle of Man’s parliament, the Tynwald and the legislatures (“States”) of Guernsey and of Jersey.
In 2008, the name British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly was adopted.
The work of the Assembly
Assembly members engage in a wide range of non-legislative parliamentary activities, through bi-annual plenary conferences and ongoing committee work.
Plenary venues alternate between the UK (including for these purposes the Crown Dependencies of the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey) and Ireland. At plenary meetings, topical issues and committee reports are debated; senior Ministers address the Assembly and take questions on a range of policy issues; and expert panels make presentations.
The Assembly’s four committees undertake inquiries on matters of common concerns between the jurisdictions, receive written and oral evidence on specific issues, and issue reports on policy issues with recommendations addressed to the governments of the UK and of Ireland, and of the devolved administrations and Crown Dependencies where appropriate.
The Steering Committee
The Steering Committee is chaired by the two Co-Chairs of the Assembly, one from the UK Parliament and one from the Oireachtas, and comprises representatives of each of the legislatures which participate in the Assembly.
It operates as the Assembly’s bureau, determining the agenda of plenary sessions, co-ordinating the work of committees and maintaining contact with the governments of the participant jurisdictions.
The Steering Committee meets at and between plenary sittings of the Assembly.
The Assembly Secretariat
The Secretariat is largely drawn from the permanent services of the UK Parliament and the Houses of the Oireachtas. It is responsible for the administration of the Assembly’s work and for the provision of advice to the Assembly and its Committees.
The Clerks to the Assembly are Martyn Atkins (from the UK Parliament) and Aisling Byrne (from the Houses of the Oireachtas).
Contact details for the Secretariat are available here.
Annual Reports
Since 1997, an Annual Report has been issued to reflect the work of BIPA over the past year. The first Annual Report accounted for the work of the British-Irish Inter Parliamentary Body in its first seven years.
Since then, an Annual Report for the previous year has typically been adopted at the plenary session the following spring.
View Annual ReportsReports about the Assembly
Periodically the Interparliamentary Body, and later the Parliamentary Assembly, has issued reports about its own operation and its future. These are available below.
A paper reviewing the first ten years of operation of the British Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body, written by the then Joint Clerks in 2000, is also available.
View reports about the Assembly