Paul Givan facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Paul Givan
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Givan in 2012
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| Minister of Education | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Assumed office 3 February 2024 |
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| First Minister | Michelle O'Neill | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Michelle McIlveen (2022) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Member of the Legislative Assembly for Lagan Valley |
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| Assumed office 14 June 2010 |
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| Preceded by | Jeffrey Donaldson | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
Paul Jonathan Givan
12 October 1981 Lisburn, Northern Ireland |
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| Nationality | British | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Democratic Unionist Party | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Emma Givan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | University of Ulster | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Paul Jonathan Givan (born 12 October 1981) is a Northern Irish unionist politician who served as First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2021 to 2022. A member of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), he has served as Minister of Education since 3 February 2024. Givan has been a Member of the Legislative Assembly for Lagan Valley since 2010.
Givan became First Minister on 17 June 2021, becoming the youngest person to hold that office. He resigned on 4 February 2022 as part of DUP protests against the Northern Ireland Protocol. From 2016 to 2017, Givan served as the Minister for Communities in the Northern Ireland Executive under First Minister Arlene Foster.
Givan has been associated with socially conservative views and has been described as being on the Paisleyite right wing of the DUP.
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Background
Givan was educated at Laurelhill Community College, where he studied Business and History, and is a graduate of the University of Ulster, where he obtained a degree in Business Studies and completed an Advanced Diploma in Management Practice. He was first elected to Lisburn City Council in 2005. His father, Alan Givan, was a prison officer with the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) who later became a DUP councillor in Lisburn.
Givan was born and raised in Lisburn. However, he is partially of County Monaghan descent, one section of his family having come from Ballybay in County Monaghan. Shortly after the Partition of Ireland in the early 1920s, this section of his family moved north from County Monaghan to the adjacent county County Tyrone. It was near Dungannon in South Tyrone that his paternal grandfather, Herbie Givan, was born and raised. Herbie later became one of the foundational members of the DUP.
Political career
According to a 2014 article in the Belfast Telegraph, Givan's "first experience of 'real politics' came when he was 18", at which time he was part-time assistant in the constituency and Stormont offices of Edwin Poots. He was later to work as a special adviser when Poots was Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure between 2007 and 2008, and then again between 2009 and 2010 when he was Minister of the Environment. Givan has stated that his interest in the DUP resulted from listening to Ian Paisley – at a rally against the Good Friday Agreement in Kilkeel. "He captured me emotionally for the DUP and Peter Robinson's and Nigel Dodds' forensic analysis of the failing of the Agreement captured me intellectually", he said.
Givan was first co-opted to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2010, replacing Jeffrey Donaldson.
In May 2016, Givan was appointed Minister for Communities. As sports minister in November 2016, he visited a GAA club in Lisburn to award a grant and played Gaelic football with some child players of the club.
First Minister of Northern Ireland (2021–2022)
In May 2021, there was speculation that Givan, having worked for Edwin Poots previously, might be nominated to become First Minister of Northern Ireland after Poots was elected DUP leader. On 8 June 2021, Poots introduced Givan as "Northern Ireland's first minister designate". At age 39, Givan was the youngest First Minister in Northern Ireland's history.
On 17 June 2021, a letter from the DUP party chairman and other senior party members asked Poots to delay Givan's nomination as First Minister to oppose the British government's decision to introduce Irish language legislation in the Westminster Parliament. However, Poots nominated Givan as First Minister and Sinn Féin re-nominated Michelle O'Neill as deputy First Minister, restoring the Northern Ireland Executive. Prior to this nomination DUP officials objected to Givan being nominated for the role. As such, within hours of his being sworn in as First Minister, Givan's DUP colleagues convened a party meeting to oust Poots as the leader of the party. Poots resigned shortly after, triggering another leadership contest.
On 19 June it was reported Givan would be required to resign as First Minister once the next DUP leader had been chosen. However, in July, the Irish News said Givan was expected to remain in his position until "later this year" after the new DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said in a UTV interview that he intended to resign his seat as a Westminster MP and become First Minister before the planned 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, but also said that he did not yet know precisely how he would bring this about.
On 3 February 2022, Givan announced his resignation as First Minister, as part of DUP protests against the Northern Ireland Protocol. He became Northern Ireland's shortest serving First Minister, having spent 231 days in office. Givan retained his seat as an MLA for Lagan Valley in the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election.
Minister of Education (2024–present)
Givan was appointed Minister of Education following the formation of the Executive of the 7th Northern Ireland Assembly on 3 February 2024. He had previously been tipped for the role of deputy First Minister.
Following his appointment, on 8 February 2024, Givan set out his key priorities for education after visiting Rathmore Grammar School. He said he has "ambitious plans to invest in our schools’ estate..." He said he wanted the "gap to close" between wages for school staff in Northern Ireland and their counterparts in Great Britain. On 12 February 2024, in his first Ministerial statement in the assembly, he set out plans for capital investment across the education sector. Givan subsequently announced that new build projects for seven schools across Northern Ireland would progress in planning.
Political views
In 2007, Givan made comments that characterised him as a creationist and was responsible for a motion calling for schools in Lisburn to teach creationist alternatives to evolution. The motion was passed by Lisburn City Council and asked all post-primary schools in the area what plans they had to "develop teaching material in relation to creation, intelligent design and other theories of origin". .....
Givan supported Edwin Poots' successful bid to become leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in May 2021, alongside Mervyn Storey and Paul Frew.
