Conference Will Point to Economic Anomalies of Partition

Conference Will Point to Economic Anomalies of Partition

EXTENDING the frontiers of all-island co-operation will be a key theme of contributions to a conference in Cork this weekend (Saturday 25 June), entitled 'Uniting Ireland: towards a new republic'.

At a similar conference organised by Sinn Féin in Dublin last Saturday, speakers such as Dr Padraic White, former managing director of the Industrial Development Authority, and Dr John Bradley, an international consultant in the area of development and industrial strategy, joined Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams TD, and the party's deputy leader, Mary Lou McDonald TD to argue for the benefits of an all-Ireland economy.

Dr Padraig White, who is chairman of the Louth Economic Forum, said “We have already travelled on the path of economic co-operation to a much greater extent than most people thought possible.” He pointed to Tourism Ireland, set up under the Belfast Agreement and which has 160 people working for the island as a whole, promoting “seamlessly the Giants' Causeway and the Lakes of Killarney”.

Dr John Bradley told the conference that “partition after 1922 was an economic as well as a political disaster. In 1926, the first year for which data are available, only 7% of total employment in the newly created Irish Free State was in manufacturing. In Northern Ireland the figure was over 30%, over four times higher. By amputating the industrialised North, partition presented the southern government with a massive challenge of industrialisation and modernisation.”

“The island economy is a reality”, he said adding that competent firms in the post-Belfast Agreement era simply traded across the border. “But we still lack an all-island policy framework that will support and strengthen the SME sector and permit firms to grow and prosper. The real partitionists are the policy makers. Not the business people,” he concluded.

Speaking in advance of the conference in Cork, Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien said:

“One aim of this conference is to point out that Irish unity makes economic sense. Two administrations on one small island are a waste of resources. Co-operation is the way forward, whether it be in terms of attracting tourism and foreign direct investment, planning infrastructure, or developing our renewal energy resources.”

Towards a New Republic – I dtreo Poblacht Nua
Saturday 25th June, 7.30-9.30pm
Concert Hall, City Hall, Cork
Admission free

For further information or comment contact Deputy Jonathan O’Brien @ 085-2133907