Noted with interest: “History in the making – A power-sharing government for Northern Ireland, at last”

Excerpted from an 8 May 2007 article on Economist.com .

Concluding questions by NWI. Comments and insight are sought.

“WILL Tuesday May 8th be marked, in years to come, as a day of celebration in Northern Ireland? There are many reasons to hope so. After generations of bloodshed, followed by nearly a decade of angry political haggling between Protestants and Catholics, local, democratic rule has been restored in the troubled province. The most stubborn of the Protestants, Ian Paisley, an octogenarian hardliner, has been sworn in as first minister of the local executive alongside his arch-foe, Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, who has become deputy minister.

“Yet despite the backslapping this week, there are reasons, too, for caution when assessing the power-sharing deal. Despite grand comparisons with historic political compromises elsewhere, such as the joint rule of whites and blacks in post-apartheid South Africa, the province’s new government represents the coming together not of moderates and visionaries but of hardline parties. Both Mr Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party and Mr McGuinness’s Sinn Fein—the political wing of the terrorist Irish Republican Army—are responsible for ditching decent parties in the province that had striven for peace and compromise far more consistently over the years. Then it took political pressure from Britain’s government—threats to make Northern Ireland’s residents pay water bills for the first time and to weaken the province’s excellent grammar schools—to get the hardliners together at all.

“As for Northern Ireland’s future, the brave talk of prosperity will depend in part on getting closer economic ties with the strong economy south of the border. But the province has also to wean itself off massive subsidies from Britain. Over a third of the 770,000 people in jobs are directly employed by the public sector, which accounts for two-thirds of economic output. Between the omnipresent state, large numbers (around half a million people) who are economically inactive and the black economy run by both Protestant and Catholic paramilitaries, little space exists in which private enterprise can flourish. In the long term, Northern Ireland’s prospects depend on it getting not only a government of local leaders who are prepared to work together, but also on adopting policies that will ease massive economic dependency on London.”

Questions:

• Will 8 May 2007 overshadow Easter Rising 1916?
• Can “arch-foes” collaboratively rule?
• What are the consequences if the hard-line parties cannot jointly rule?
• What are the benefits if they can?
• What are the immediate impacts of losing subsidies from Britain?
• What might be done to increase the “little space [that] exists in which private enterprise can flourish”?
• What industries might flourish in the space?
• What new industries might emerge?
• What are the value of both?

NotedWithInterest@gmail.com

- NWI staff

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