ADDRESS BY MARY HARNEY, TÁNAISTE AND MINISTER FOR ENTERPRISE, TRADE AND EMPLOYMENT AT THE NORTHERN IRELAND ECONOMIC CONFERENCE IN GALGORM MANOR, BALLYMENA, CO. ANTRIM ON THURSDAY, 17TH SEPTEMBER, 1998

I have been asked to talk to you today about the spectacular success of the Irish economy and how that success can be emulated up here in Northern Ireland. I could cite many factors which have contributed to economic growth in the Republic in recent years.

• We have maintained low rates of corporate taxation to attract foreign direct investment.
• We have cut the burden of personal taxation in order to increase the reward for working.
• We have invested heavily in education to ensure a supply of highly skilled people for the modern, hi-tech industries of today.
• We have encouraged competition and promoted deregulation so as to improve our national competitiveness.

Northern Ireland is ahead of us in some of these areas and behind us in others. But I am not sure that the south has all that much to teach the north in terms of economic management.

Northern Ireland has tremendous economic potential. It has a well educated and adaptable workforce, fused with a great work ethic. It has a very good transport infrastructure, with good sea and air links to Great Britain. It has great attractions for foreign investors seeking a European manufacturing base.

But Northern Ireland has not been able to achieve its true economic potential. Civil strife, political violence and sectarian tension have created a very negative international image for Northern Ireland - not to mention a very difficult living environment for its own people.

For thirty years foreign investors have stayed away, tourists have stayed away. For thirty years many of the best and the brightest of Northern Ireland's people have voted with their feet and gone away. These are huge burdens for any small, open economy to bear.

Opportunity beckons for Northern Ireland right now. The Good Friday Agreement, ratified by the overwhelming majority of the people in the May referendum, opens the way to peace and prosperity for everyone.

Peace and normality are taken for granted now in every country in the European Union. Past enmities are not allowed to poison present relationships.

It is remarkable to think that when Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany was a young man his country was waging violent war on France and Britain. Today, nobody thinks it the slightest bit unusual to see Kohl, Blair and Chirac chatting amiably together after European Council meetings.

The Europeans are blessed with short memories; the Irish are cursed with long ones. We have found it very hard to free ourselves from history. Ancient tribal victories are commemorated, celebrated and re-enacted. Ancient tribal defeats live long in the folk memory, a source of grievance passed from generation to generation.

For years we in the south tried to live in the past, looking backwards, not forwards. But we changed. The pace of change was slow at first but now it's rapid.

Perhaps the most important thing that has changed in the last thirty years is our attitude to Northern Ireland. In 1968 few in the south accepted the right of the majority up here to determine the constitutional future of Northern Ireland. In 1998 every political party in the south accepts that principle.

I recognise that the process of change for the people of Northern Ireland will be much more difficult. Those who have lost loved ones during the Troubles will find it hard to forgive and impossible to forget. Those who have been burned out of their homes will find it hard to forgive and impossible to forget.

But the people of Northern Ireland must recognise that the past provides no path to the future. In this respect it is heartening to see the way in which politicians from all sides, some of them formerly sworn enemies, are now working together to build a new future for Northern Ireland.

I appreciate just how difficult this process is for many of them and I think their efforts should be applauded by all of us. The Good Friday Agreement created the structures for a new political beginning in Northern Ireland - a new Assembly, new institutions, new ministries. Worked properly, these structures can deliver a great deal for the people of Northern Ireland.

But politicians in Stormont will deliver little if a culture of sectarianism still pervades Northern Ireland society. Looking around us we see a place where people play separate sports, support separate teams, attend separate schools and live in separate areas. They attend separate churches, even though - to the bemusement of outsiders - they worship the same God.

Northern Ireland can continue with this kind of apartheid society, but is that what's wanted by all those hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who voted so recently in support of the Good Friday Agreement ? I don't think so.

Sectarian tensions have simmered here for centuries; and thirty years of political violence have fanned the flames of sectarianism to dangerous levels. The curse of sectarianism must be removed permanently from the social and political landscape of Northern Ireland if there is ever to be a normal, civil society here.

I think that every organisation can play a part in breaking down sectarian barriers. But those barriers will never come down if everyone waits for the other guy to move first. Sporting, cultural, political and religious bodies should all ask themselves: what are we doing to break down sectarian barriers in our society today ?

Few places in Europe have as bright an economic future before them as Northern Ireland. I believe that the process of normalisation - the achievement of peace and stability - can pay rich dividends for the people of Northern Ireland.

For a start it will greatly enhance the attractiveness of Northern Ireland as a location for foreign direct investment. This is an area where we in the south have been spectacularly successful in recent years. If the north could achieve a fraction of our success it could have a transforming impact on the whole economy of the region.

Tourism is another area where considerable progress can be made. It is said that there are more hotel rooms in Killarney than in the whole of Northern Ireland put together. Tourism is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world and there is huge scope for expansion there.

There is also much that can be achieved in the area of cross-border co-operation. We need better infrastructural links between north and south, particularly in the areas of transport and energy.

Great progress has been made in upgrading the Dublin-Belfast railway line over the last couple of years; but the road link between the two major urban centres on the island is still hopelessly inadequate. Other cross-border road corridors are also in need of substantial improvement.

We need a more co-ordinated approach to the marketing of the island as a whole in foreign markets and I am confident that significant progress can be made on this front in the years ahead.

We also need to make the two parts of Ireland more aware of each other. It is amazing how many people in the south have never even been to the north, while many northerners seem to be unaware of the enormous social and economic changes that have taken place in the Republic in recent years.

Economic progress depends ultimately on political progress. If, for some reason, the peace process broke down and the new structures fell, then the future for Northern Ireland would be bleak. It is vital that we all work to ensure that that does not happen.

The concept of majority rule has always been at the heart of the political debate throughout Northern Ireland's history. The majority was synonymous with the Protestant/Unionist community and the minority was synonymous with the Catholic/Nationalist community.

But we now have a new majority in Northern Ireland, the people who supported the Good Friday Agreement in the May referendum. That majority is based not on religion or national identity but on political reality.

The new majority recognises that the only way forward for Northern Ireland is through building a partnership society in which both communities have a stake and to which both communities have allegiance.

The voice of the new majority must be heard. The future peace and prosperity of Northern Ireland depends on it.