Green Party Leader Steven Agnew will be flying the flag for environmental politics in the Northern Ireland Assembly having just been elected as MLA for North Down.

The youngest leader of a political party in the UK and Ireland, Mr Agnew took the last seat in his North Down constituency when vote counting ended on Saturday night.

Mr Agnew said: “I am honoured and delighted to have been elected to the local Assembly and I will provide a strong voice of opposition against the planned cuts and act as a champion for environmental issues.

“I want to thank the electorate of North Down for putting their trust in me and I will repay their support by consistently working to make sure that my area is properly represented at Assembly level.

“This has been a long and hard campaign and the Green Party has been working tirelessly to build its support base both in North Down and across Northern Ireland for quite a number of years and that work has now come to fruition with my election as MLA.

“We fought a fair and positive campaign and are delighted that voters have listened to what we have to offer and invested their trust in us.

“For the first time it was a pure Green vote that carried us through to victory in North Down and it gives us an excellent base to work from to build party support further as we now have the opportunity to prove that the Green Party has viable policies that will benefit the whole electorate

“It shows that Northern Ireland has moved on from the past and I am proud that the electorate of North Down have proved to be independent thinkers who want to plan and build a better future for all.

“The Green Party fought this campaign with a promise promoting policies that are good for the economy, good for people and good for the environment and we will only be supporting measures that are benchmarked against all three.

“In the next few days we will find out if we have built our support even further as the council results are declared and we look forward to taking our place at the political top table and providing a strong voice for fair and clean politics in Northern Ireland.”