Michelle McIlveen

Michelle McIlveen, MLA (born 21 January 1971) is a politician from Northern Ireland. She was elected in 2007 to the Northern Ireland Assembly as a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) member for Strangford. She served as the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs from 2016 until the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive in January 2017.

She is the DUP spokesperson on children and young people. She is also a former councillor on Ards Borough Council, to which she was first elected in 2005. She served as the Junior Minister in the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. On 1 September 2015, Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) minister Danny Kennedy resigned from the Department for Regional Development after his party's decision to withdraw from the Northern Ireland Executive (due to allegations of the Provisional IRA's continued existence by Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable George Hamilton).

Under Northern Ireland Assembly rules, when a Department Minister resigns, their party has seven working days to replace the minister or the position is given to another party under the D'Hondt method. This then fell to the DUP, who undertook a cycle of ministerial resignations/appointments/resignations to avoid losing their ministries to other parties like the UUP during the period of time when claims of IRA activity were being made and investigated. The position of Minister for Regional Development lay vacant until 28 September 2015. McIlveen was appointed as minister, with Emma Pengelly replacing her as Junior Minister.