Stephen Farry

Stephen Farry MLA
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for North Down
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 March 2007
Preceded by	Eileen Bell
Minister for Employment and Learning
In office 5 May 2011 – 6 May 2016
First Minister	Peter Robinson Arlene Foster
deputy First Minister	Martin McGuinness John O'Dowd (Acting)
Preceded by	Danny Kennedy
Succeeded by	abolished
Personal details
Born	(1971-04-22) 22 April 1971 Newtownards, Northern Ireland
Political party	Alliance
Alma mater	Queen's University, Belfast

Stephen Farry MLA (born 22 April 1971) is an Alliance Party of Northern Ireland politician from Newtownards.

He has been a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for North Down since 2007, and was Minister for Employment and Learning in the Northern Ireland Executive until the post was abolished in 2016.

Early career

Farry graduated from Queen's University, Belfast in 1992 with a BSSc in Politics and a PhD in International Relations in 2000. He was elected to the Assembly in the 2007 election for North Down, having first been elected to North Down Borough Council in 1993. In 1996, he was an unsuccessful candidate in the Northern Ireland Forum election in Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

He is a former General Secretary of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. He was appointed an International Peace Scholar by the US Institute of Peace in 2005. In 2007, he became Mayor of North Down.