The Alliance Party has insisted newly elected MLA Sorcha Eastwood is committed to the Stormont Assembly after she declared being on a "career break".
Ms Eastwood said in her Stormont register of interests she is on a "12-month career break" until May 2023 from her job as a parliamentary adviser to Alliance MP Stephen Farry.
The Lagan Valley MLA, a former councillor in Lisburn and Castlereagh, had worked for the party's deputy leader earning £31,000 a year until her election to the Assembly in May.
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Alliance said Ms Eastwood and fellow newly elected MLA Eóin Tennyson, who had worked for Deloitte, "have been permitted by their previous employers to take a leave of absence, given the uncertainty around the restoration of the institutions".
"They will not be working any hours for or receiving remuneration from them while serving as an MLA, which is their only job.
"All Alliance MLAs are committed to the Assembly. It is regrettable the inability and unwillingness of others to do the job they were elected to do means such precautions are considered necessary."
Stormont's power-sharing institutions have yet to be re-established since May's election as the DUP has blocked their restoration in protest over Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol.
Mr Tennyson, an MLA for Upper Bann, did not mention a career break on his register of interests, but he said he had worked full-time for Deloitte as an associate in audit and assurance services.
Ms Eastwood is considered a future challenger to the DUP retaining its Westminster seat in a Lagan Valley by-election when party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson returns to Stormont.
In March, former Alliance leader David Ford accused Sir Jeffrey of showing "zero" commitment to Stormont when he failed to take up a vacant Assembly seat in Lagan Valley.
He claimed the DUP leader was "running scared" of Ms Eastwood at the Alliance Party.
But Sir Jeffrey said the idea that he or his party was "running away from the electorate is for the fairies".
The DUP leader was subsequently elected to the Assembly for Lagan Valley, but days later he co-opted Emma Little-Pengelly to his seat to remain at Westminster to protest over the Protocol.
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