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Julie-Anne Corr-Johnston is a loyalist councillor for the Progressive Unionist Party.

She tells Sky News about the biggest challenges facing her community in north Belfast, and her frustrations with the collapse of power sharing in Northern Ireland.

At 14 years of age I was receiving counselling for self-harm and depression.

At 15 I was a troubled and struggling student, told by my educators that I would amount to nothing and by 18 I was working for £5 an hour trying to make ends meet.

My story is just part of the wider north Belfast story.

I could count on my hands, and yours, the number of school friends who dreamt of becoming doctors and nurses.

The closest they ever got was a stethoscope under the Christmas tree or a zero-hour contract administering care in the community.

Educational underachievement and academic selection or rather social selection has squashed the fingertips of those amongst us who dare reach beyond the rung of the class ladder.

Low pay, a lack of employment opportunities and increasing non-flexible household bills, such as our rates and taxes, have resulted in poverty - food, fuel and financial.

There are some in my community that have gone to bed at night on an empty stomach having given their children their last, and others forced to choose between heating and eating.

More frustrating, however, is that the power to make a difference, to make a meaningful impact, rests with the Northern Ireland Assembly.

An Assembly that, through the mechanism of mandatory coalition - which effectively forces a cross-community government, occupied by two ideologically opposite parties - has institutionalised sectarianism.

Every election in Northern Ireland is now a show of strength for constitutional politics rather than a mandate for socio-economic change.

Until such times the style and system of governance in Northern Ireland changes, we are, regrettably, condemned to the politics of fear and division and denied our hopes and ambitions.