Social partnership and inclusion will be high on the agenda of the new trade and business development body if one of its 12 members gets her way.
The president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Ms Inez McCormack, has pledged to ensure a concept of social justice and responsibility informs its discussions, which open formally at the end of January. The group is one of six set up under the auspices of the North-South Ministerial Council in Armagh last week.
"While I am very conscious of our particular remit under the Belfast Agreement, we must keep in mind that we cannot have a dysfunction between successful economics and poor democracy. The people who suffered most during the conflict have to feel that all the political institutions, including the new North-South bodies, include them," she said.
Under the Belfast Agreement, the trade body's main tasks are specified as devising new approaches to cross-Border business development in training, research, marketing and quality improvement and the promotion of North-South trade. It will also try to ensure greater coherence in testing, standards and quality control, and third-level education.
According to Ms McCormack, creating an inclusive labour market and focusing on socio-economic relationships are equally important.
"I will just have to convince the business people I am working with that my outcome and their outcome are ultimately the same, that mine makes good sense in their context, too," the ICTU president said.
There had to be a special focus on the regeneration of cross-Border regions, she added, a sentiment shared by another trade body member, Mr Feargal McCormack, a Newry-based chartered accountant.
"The Border counties have been on the periphery of both economies. In Newry, we have a good tradition of excellent cross-Border co-operation and I am very pleased this has been rewarded by selecting Newry as the trade body's headquarters," he added.
Cross-Border co-operation has long been a practicality which is now being formalised and structured by the creation of the trade body, according to another member, Ms Mary Breslin, a partner in Total Engineering and a former member of the Northern Ireland Electricity Board.
The exact remit and procedural mechanisms of the trade board have to be finalised but it will implement decisions taken by the council and issue its own recommendations. Several members said they were "very much in the dark" on how the trade body would work but that not necessarily a disadvantage, according to one.
"At least we are not weighed down by the `heavy hand of history'. I think it is vital that we, the business community, will have an input into setting the standards and protocol of the new body," Ms Breslin said.
"Of all the implementation bodies, the trade body is the only one that has not existed in some shape or form before. The fact that it is so spanking new means we have to deal with absolutely everything from scratch," said Mr Liam Nellis, its acting chief executive and a senior official at the Industrial Development Board in Belfast.
The North-South Ministerial Council will appoint a chairman and vice-chairman from among the trade body's members when it meets in January. They include the Duke of Abercorn, former chairman of the Laganside Development Agency, Mr Kieran McGowan, former IDA chief executive, Mr Martin McNaughton, chairman of Glen Dimplex, Ms Jackie Harrison, director of enterprise at IBEC, Ms Mary Ainscough, former chief executive of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ireland, Mr Carl McCann, vice-chairman of Fyffes, Mr Harold Ennis, founding chairman of Boxmore, Mr Barry Fitzsimmons, a stockbroker at Cunningham Coates and Mr Robbie Smith a lecturer at Griffith College Dublin.
