Lookin’ South

He also demanded Sinn Fein accept new policing arrangements, and revealed details of a forthcoming international investment conference aimed at boosting Northern Ireland’s economic fortunes.
Hain, visiting New York as part of his second trip to the U.S. since becoming Secretary of State in May, predicted that the island of Ireland would soon come to be seen as a single economic unit.
“In future decades, it is going to be increasingly difficult to look at the economy of north and south except as a sort of island of Ireland economy,” he said. “We are deepening north-south cooperation in a number of areas.”
Hain acknowledged the seriousness of the economic challenges faced by Northern Ireland, where some surveys have suggested that up to 60 percent of all employment is dependent upon the state.
“The Northern Ireland economy, though it is doing better than ever in its history, is not sustainable in the long-term,” Hain said. “I don’t want the Northern Ireland economy to be a dependent economy as it is now, with a sort of UK, ‘big brother’ umbrella over it. It needs to be much more self-sufficient, so that’s what we’re trying to do.”
The international investment conference, which is slated to take place in late spring or summer next year, is one of the initiatives aimed at addressing these problems. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair will endorse the event, Hain said.
Again putting conspicuous stress on the all-Ireland dimension, he emphasized the gains that could accrue to the north from linking itself more closely to the Republic.
The conference, he said, would provide “an opportunity for Irish Americans not to just act charitably, but for businesses in their own hard self-interest to say, ‘look, Northern Ireland’s a great place to invest, it is part of an island that is growing very fast, especially in the south’.”
In relation to the peace process, Hain noted that the British government intended to introduce legislation in February that would provide for the devolution of policing and criminal justice powers to the north. However, such legislation would not be implemented until the northern institutions came back into full operation. The resurrection of the institutions does not appear likely until spring 2006 at the earliest.
Sinn Fein has so far refused to join the local policing boards that will assume responsibility for the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Distrust of the police is also virtually universal among the party’s supporters.
Speaking via satellite to a Friends of Sinn Fein dinner held in New York’s Sheraton Hotel last week, however, Gerry Adams said that his party would “be part of a policing dispensation.”
Hain insisted that “there is no reason for Sinn Fein not to engage with policing. I know the history and the conflict, but we are in a new era in Northern Ireland.”
He also complained that some low-level instances in which Sinn Fein representatives had declined to co-operate with the PSNI were “petty and almost vindictive.” Referring to Sinn Fein’s reticence about signing up to the new policing plans, he said the party might as well “cut the crap and get on with it.”
He expressed similar impatience with loyalists in relation to contentious parades. In recent years, marches through or close to Catholic areas by Protestant organizations, primarily the Orange Order, have provoked serious disorder
The Orange Order’s leaders have in general been antagonistic both to groups representing Catholic residents and to the Parades Commission, the body that adjudicates on the acceptability or otherwise of proposed marching routes.
“There are some very good people in the Orange Order who are engaged despite the leadership,” Hain said. “The leadership of the Orange Order really has to recognize that its standoff from the Parades Commission itself, and from local dialogue, is just not good enough. The unionists have a right to parade — without intimidating anybody — but that has to be [based upon] cross-community consensus.”
Hain also addressed the ongoing controversy about the lack of British government recruitment advertising in Daily Ireland, a relatively new paper in Northern Ireland. Daily Ireland’s launch was assisted to the tune of about $800,000 by U.S. investors. It hews to a strongly nationalist editorial line.
The paper’s management alleges that the British government’s refusal to place recruitment advertising within its pages is evidence of bias against it and its readers.
Not surprisingly, Hain disputed that interpretation. He noted that there were already other forms of British government advertising in Daily Ireland and that decisions about recruitment advertising were made on a value-for-money basis.
“Government advertising is not some kind of taxpayers’ subsidy for the press,” he said. “It has got to produce some kind of benefit. That’s the criteria.”