Inaugural Plenary Meeting of North/South Ministerial Council Opening Remarks by Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms. Mary Harney, T.D.

Today we stand at the threshold of a new era for our island and for its economy. After too many years of division and conflict we have at last the chance to achieve our full potential. The costs of our past failures were overwhelmingly human costs - lives destroyed or wasted. But there were also financial and economic costs, both direct and indirect.

Together we can begin to shape a new future of shared prosperity for all our citizens. Working together in partnership, within the framework offered by this Council, we can make real the prospect of a new beginning in our relationship.

In both North and South we have long accepted that our economic future is dependent on our openness to the world economy. Now in these days of globalisation, it seems only right that we are embarking on a new era of openness within Ireland, between North and South and between our two traditions. I firmly believe that strengthening our common base will equip us better for the full rigours of the world marketplace.

Co-operation and action for mutual benefit on this island can hurt no one and will pay dividends to everyone. The success of the Republic's economy in recent years has been dramatic, as indeed many among you, including David Trimble and Reg Empey, have generously acknowledged. I hope that there are lessons we can share. But equally we have things to learn from your successes in a number of areas such as is the engineering sector here.

I know that business and trade union leaders in both parts of Ireland welcome the important steps in the right direction which we are taking here today. They have long been pressing us, as politicians, to appreciate what they, as men and women of sound good sense and practical experience, have known for years: that what we can achieve alone pales in comparison to what we can achieve by working together. Of course much existing co-operation is already taking place. And, equally, it is for enterprises themselves to take the lead in exploiting the full potential of the island economy. But this Council and all of the other elements of the Good Friday Agreement have created a new context and equipped us with new tools with which to take co-operation and common action forward.

I welcomed, in February this year, the joint statement from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the IBEC-CBI Joint Business Council, strongly endorsing and supporting the Good Friday Agreement and setting out the strategic vision and priorities of business, North and South. We should continue to learn from what business itself wants and is doing.

That report also stressed the European dimension to our co-operation and common action. I am happy to note that on our agenda this morning are decisions on the locations for offices of the new Special EU Programmes Implementation Body.

Another Body of particular importance is the Trade and Business Development Body. It offers significant scope for supporting enterprise and trade on a North/South basis. It will allow us to take a fresh look at how we support our small and medium enterprises and to capitalise on possible synergies and efficiencies. It will also, among other things, support work on jointly developing e-commerce opportunities - already a vital technology, and one which will dominate the early years of the new century.

We have made great progress but further challenges now lie ahead to ensure that this opportunity is utilised to the full. Only an economically vibrant society will provide the means whereby want, poverty, marginalisation and dispossession are eliminated. On this island, we share similar resources and similar constraints. It is only by working together that we can continue to eliminate the constraints and develop our resources, including our greatest resource, our people, to the full.

So, I was very pleased to see that, even before this Council had formally met, Ministers were already engaging in direct contact. I personally was delighted to meet Reg Empey in Dublin last week. Over the coming weeks and months we will continue to get to get to know one another better and get down to doing business together.

At this turning point in history, we have been given an opportunity denied to previous generations. An opportunity to work together to enhance the well-being of all of the people of this island. An opportunity to advance the work of healing and reconciliation. An opportunity, definitively, to turn the page on the past and to open a new chapter is the story of our island. It is a fitting challenge for the new Millennium, and one to which I am sure we can rise together.