Alan McFarland

Major Robert Alan McFarland, MLA (born 9 August 1949 in Plumbridge, County Tyrone[1]) is an Ulster Unionist Party politician and MLA for North Down in Northern Ireland.

He attended Rockport School near Holywood and Campbell College in East Belfast. After a short career in banking he was admitted to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment in 1974. He is also a member of Mensa. [2]

He retired from the British Army in 1992 with the rank of Major and became a Parliamentary Assistant to James Molyneaux, MP, and the Rev. Martin Smyth, MP. In 1995 he was selected by the Ulster Unionists to contest the North Down by-election over the favourite for the nomination, Reg Empey, but was beaten in the election by Robert McCartney. He was again beaten by McCartney in the 1997 general election by a narrower margin.

In 1996 he was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue for North Down and was involved in the talks process that resulted in the Belfast Agreement of 1998. He was one of three UUP members returned to the Assembly for North Down in the first elections to the body in 1998 and he retained his seat in the November 2003 elections and March 2007 elections.

He was until reconstitution in 2006 one of the UUP representatives on the Northern Ireland Policing Board.