Sinn Féin is expected to announce its new Stormont leader later today.

The health minister, Michelle O’Neill, is widely tipped as the politician who will take over from former deputy first minister Martin McGuinness who has retired due to illness.

Over the weekend, Mrs O’Neill took a prominent position sitting next to party president Gerry Adams at a conference on Irish unity in Dublin.

If selected she will have just five weeks to prepare for an election.

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Northern Ireland will go to the polls on 2 March to elect a new Assembly after the executive collapsed over the handling of a botched green energy scheme.

The fallout from the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, which is approximately £490m over budget, led to Mr McGuinness’ quitting after DUP leader Arlene Foster refused to stand aside as first minster while an investigation was carried out.

As they hold a joint office, his resignation automatically put the DUP leader out of her job and prompted the calling of snap elections on 2 March.

Newry and Armagh assembly member, Conor Murphy, and the finance minister, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, were the other Sinn Féin MLAs mentioned as potential replacements for Mr McGuinness, but Michelle O’Neill has been more prominent in recent weeks as the public face of the party.

Mrs O’Neill was elected to the assembly in Mid Ulster in 2007 and has held various senior positions within Sinn Féin.

She has worked in the Assembly since 1998, initially as political adviser to MP and former MLA Francie Molloy, before being elected to Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council in 2005.

As health minister since May 2016, tackling mounting hospital waiting lists has been a huge task for Mrs O’Neill.

Agriculture

In 2011, she was appointed as minister for agriculture and rural development.

The following year, she announced that the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) would move to a former British army barracks in Ballykelly, County Londonderry.

Following the announcement, it came to light that Strabane had been chosen as a more suitable location by an internal DARD assessment, a decision that Mrs O’Neill then overruled.

In February 2013, it was also revealed that the decision had been questioned by the Finance Minister Sammy Wilson.

Health minister

In October, she launched a 10-year plan to transform health service, saying it would improve a system that was at “breaking point”.

Opposition politicians questioned the lack of details in the plan, which was not costed.

But it set out a range of priorities, including a new model of care involving a team of professionals based around GP surgeries.