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What has Belfast Agreement delivered for the North’s youth?

A quarter of a century on, daily violence is gone but education is 93% segregated, Stormont is not functioning and paramilitaries remain a scourge on some of the most marginalised communities

Befast: A generation may have grown up free from large-scale violence, but it still carries scars.
Befast: A generation may have grown up free from large-scale violence, but it still carries scars.

Next Monday, April 10th, marks the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement which will be accompanied by a fanfare of presidential visits, galas and conferences. But has the agreement really delivered for its contemporary generation? It’s clear that while the North’s Belfast Agreement generation are grateful for peace, the kids are not alright.

‘Northern Ireland has moved on’ - Fintan O’Toole on the Good Friday Agreement at 25Opens in new window ]

Take Karl Duncan from Derry who is 21. In his view the agreement was “a chance for an entire generation to live without violence. Obviously, that is what was achieved, but the expectation that a lot of people had hasn’t matched up to a large degree. That’s not the fault of the agreement; I think that’s the fault of politicians here who haven’t maximised the opportunities.”

Karl Duncan: 'We have to be ambitious, we have to be bold, because we have a unique opportunity.'
Karl Duncan: 'We have to be ambitious, we have to be bold, because we have a unique opportunity.'

Like Duncan, who is a member of SDLP Youth, some 600,000 have been born in Northern Ireland since 1998, and they have grownup under a sustained period of peace relative to those who lived through the Troubles. But “peace” is more than just the absence of conflict – and it is here where decades of complacency and political failures have inflicted a different kind of wound on the next generation.

Northern Ireland has the highest levels of child poverty in the UK, as well as high suicide rates, with young people in the North more than twice as likely to die by suicide than those in England. We’ve lost more people to suicide since 1998 than to the 30-year conflict itself.

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Nessa Brenan: 'I think there’s this idea that we’re born and we’re all perfect and we’ve no recollection of people getting killed on the streets.'
Nessa Brenan: 'I think there’s this idea that we’re born and we’re all perfect and we’ve no recollection of people getting killed on the streets.'

Opening up about her experiences growing up in post-1998 Northern Ireland, 23-year-old Nessa Brennan from Co Fermanagh said, “I think there’s this idea that we’re born and we’re all perfect and we’ve no recollection of people getting killed on the streets. But because you didn’t talk about it, those people who lost people have never had an outlet for their grief, and of course it’s going to trickle down to our generation. And people are going to have the same alignments as their parents. I think that’s really overlooked a lot, particularly in the South.”

For 21-year-old Jude O’Kane from Belfast, the agreement “changed how Northern Ireland was for years, but it’s kind of kept us in stasis since 1998 really; We’ve been stuck in the same place… It’s probably more of a ceasefire than peace because peace, for me, involves understanding.” O’Kane is involved in Fine Gael Youth.

Jude O'Kane: 'We’ve been stuck in the same place… it’s probably more of a ceasefire than peace because peace, for me, involves understanding.'
Jude O'Kane: 'We’ve been stuck in the same place… it’s probably more of a ceasefire than peace because peace, for me, involves understanding.'

“Positive” peace is defined as being built on investment and economic development, sustained institutions and attitudes that foster peace. Of the eight pillars of positive peace defined by the Institute of Economics and Peace, a well-functioning government comes in at number one. Stormont lay dormant for the 20th anniversary of the agreement, as it will be for the 25th. It has been active for only 60 per cent of its existence.

European Parliament marks 25th anniversary of the Belfast AgreementOpens in new window ]

Can we really say that this is a success? As Brennan puts it, “We need more, we’re allowed to ask for more… I’m 23 and for the majority of my adult life we haven’t had a government. Just because there’s no violence doesn’t mean the problem is fixed.”

A lack of university places, apprenticeships or high-skilled and well-paid jobs leads to a disproportionately high volume of young people choosing to leave Northern Ireland, with the vast majority opting not to return. Duncan contends that “ Seventy per cent of my year at school have all left to go to England, and I would say a good 85 per cent have left Derry. Even as somebody who really loves this city, there’s a great imbalance here and it’s very hard to feel like there’s a reason for me to remain here at times, in terms of a lack of job opportunities and a lack of educational opportunities.”

This is echoed by 24-year-old Emma Rooney from Co Down who adds that “A sizeable number of people that I went to school with are now in Sydney, or Vancouver, or Qatar, or somewhere that is not Ireland because they don’t see a future for themselves in Northern Ireland.” Rooney works in European Movement Ireland.

Emma Rooney: 'A sizeable number of people that I went to school with are now in Sydney, or Vancouver, or Qatar.'
Emma Rooney: 'A sizeable number of people that I went to school with are now in Sydney, or Vancouver, or Qatar.'

The Belfast Agreement is cited as a global model but, in truth, the accord has faltered in the same way so many others have failed: in its implementation. Northern Ireland’s education system remains 93 per cent segregated, Stormont is not functioning, paramilitaries remain a scourge on some of our most marginalised communities. Is this really the best we can do? The limit of our ambition?

The agreement has never been fully functioning. My generation may have grown up free from large-scale violence, but we still carry scars. If this milestone anniversary becomes yet another backward-looking talking shop, then it will be a missed opportunity. We have to be capable – as a society – of accepting that, while it was an astonishing achievement in its time, what little of the agreement was permitted to trickle into legislation and the fabric of society over the last quarter century simply isn’t enough today. As Duncan says, “We have to be ambitious, we have to be bold, because we have a unique opportunity. We could completely reshape this society if we want to, but it takes us being bold.”

NI economy ‘transformed’ since Belfast Agreement, analysis showsOpens in new window ]

Instead of plastering over the cracks, both governments as co-guarantors should action a joint committee to review the Belfast Agreement and establish an implementation strategy, which should be monitored by an external third party.

As for the term “peace babies”, Brennan says, “It’s a mark of who you are, but it conceals the fact that our generation has faced so many issues. It’s not really peace, it’s a plaster over a leaky pipe. It’s not really working, the problems are still there. The bitterness is certainly still there, so I think ‘peace babies’ is such a stretch because, yeah, there might not be literal, physical violence, but the sectarianism in schools and everything is shocking.” Our work here is not done.

Emma de Souza is a writer and citizens rights activist