The University of Ulster last night held its first degree ceremony outside Northern Ireland, when it honoured Boston business leader Mr John Cullinane for his work for peace and economic development in Ireland at a ceremony in the John F Kennedy Library in Boston.
Mr Cullinane was conferred with an honorary doctorate of science by the university's president and vice-chancellor, Dr Gerry McKenna, at an event attended by leading political, business and community leaders from Massachusetts.
The recipient is president of the Cullinane Group and a prominent figure in the US computer software products industry. He is a former chairman of the board of the JFK Library Foundation and has a long history of involvement in Northern Ireland. He was named economic adviser for Belfast in North America and is a founder of the Friends of Belfast in North America, and co-chaired a trade mission to Ireland with Massachussets governor Mr William Weld.
In his acceptance address, Mr Cullinane, whose parents emigrated 70 years ago from Ireland to seek a better future for their children, said he strongly believed that properly focused entrepreneurial skills would create substantial jobs and economic development and become the key to lasting peace in Northern Ireland.
"Wherever you go in the world, they have different names for it," he said. "In South Africa, it's a race problem, in India it's a class problem, in Israel it's a Palestinian problem, in Northern Ireland it was a religious problem. Yet these areas all have had one thing in common and that is that one group traditionally had all the money, all the best jobs and all the political power, while another group had nothing.
"Wherever these conditions are present in the world, there has always been great trouble because one group has nothing to lose. In Northern Ireland this issue has been addressed, brilliantly, during the past six years." Unemployment had fallen to 7 per cent and disadvantaged areas in Belfast, both Protestant and Catholic, could see good jobs in their neighborhoods for the first time. Much of the progress came about "because the people of Belfast and Northern Ireland were willing to travel the world promoting jobs and economic development". Boston, in turn, "has done more for peace in Northern Ireland than any city in America".
In his address, Dr McKenna said the university was conferring a degree for the first time outside Northern Ireland to acknowledge the debt everyone there owed to friends in the United States, and especially in Massachusetts. The University of Ulster was at the heart of the regeneration of Northern Ireland, he said. "Northern Ireland is no longer the United Kingdom's highest unemployment region. Crossborder trade is increasing at 10 per cent annually despite the strong but non-predatory Celtic Tiger economy, consolidating the trend towards a single Ireland economy."
However, the economic activity rate was lower than in Britain and GDP was just over 80 per cent of the UK average. One in three employees in Northern Ireland worked for the public sector compared to one in five in Britain, creating a dependency culture. Northern Ireland also had the lowest rate of connectivity to the emerging technologies in the UK. Borrowing a quotation from President Kennedy he concluded: "There is much unfinished business in Northern Ireland and I promise you that we mean to see it through."
