The Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue was a body set up in 1996 as part of a process of negotiations that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
The forum was elected, with five members being elected for each Westminster Parliamentary constituency for Northern Ireland, under the D'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation. There was also a "topup" of two seats for the ten parties polling most votes; this ensured that two loyalist parties associated with paramilitary groups were represented. See members of the Northern Ireland Forum for a complete list.
The Forum was constituted under the Northern Ireland (Entry to Negotiations, etc) Act 1996. The Forum was described in the Act as being purely deliberative in nature, and was explicitly stated to have no "executive, legislative or administrative" functions assigned to it, nor to have any authority over the Good Friday negotiations. It was permitted to consider, in a deliberative capacity, "any matter" referred to it by the negotiatiors.
The results of the election were:
<small>All parties shown.</small>
<small>Note: The Democratic Unionist Party was listed on the ballot paper as "Democratic Unionist Party DUP Ian Paisley" </small>
Top-up candidates were elected from lists supplied by each party. The highest-placed candidates who had not already won election through a constituency won the top-up seats. In the table below, the top-up candidates elected through the regional list are shown in bold, while candidates elected in constituencies are shown in italics. Candidates in normal type were not elected.
Under section 7 of the Northern Ireland (Entry to Negotiations, etc) Act, it was possible for the Forum to be suspended and revived as necessary via statutory Order, subject to a sunset date of 31 May 1997 when section 3, the provision detailing the existence of the Forum, would be automatically repealed, and the Forum abolished. However, this date could itself be extended via statutory Order, but could not be set after 31 May 1998.
These powers were made use of several times: