OPINION:Both governments must consider practical opportunities to work together for the greater prosperity of this island
THE TAOISEACH’S visit to London yesterday to meet UK prime minister David Cameron focused on strengthening relations between the two countries to increase economic co-operation, trade and investment. This ambition must be matched by a much greater effort to get the two parts of this island, North and South, to work together to overcome our common and deep economic problems.
Peace and prosperity are closely linked. Successful post-conflict national projects in Germany and Japan after the second World War were nourished and sustained by prosperity.
Both Northern Ireland and the Republic have been impacted upon hugely by the global recession and are being forced to implement public expenditure cutbacks in the expectation that economic growth will follow.
An inter-jurisdictional “prosperity process” is needed to help to consolidate the Northern peace process and assist both governments in considering practical opportunities to work together for the greater prosperity of the island.
Such a process would identify and develop new practical opportunities for the two administrations to work together with this end in mind.
The most immediate opportunity is to share some niche public service provision so as to provide more effective, better “value for money” services for citizens on both sides of the Border.
Health, tourism and infrastructure such as energy and treated water are three examples. All are under heavy pressure in both jurisdictions due to spending cuts. Some opportunities have already been officially identified.
For example, Democratic Unionist Party Minister for Health Edwin Poots has said a recent hospitals review’s recommendation that an outlying Northern Ireland hospital such as Daisy Hill in Newry should be downgraded could be offset were it to “extend its services” across the Border.
He is having “conversations” with the health authorities in Dublin about this.
Such joined-up thinking should be extended to the provision of orthopaedic day care and other cross-Border services, including facilities at Enniskillen’s almost completed new hospital.
Tourism is a major contributor to prosperity. Currently, Tourism Ireland’s mandate – through its overseas marketing campaigns – is focused exclusively on increasing the size of the pie by bringing as many tourists as possible on to the island.
However, when those tourists are actually here, Fáilte Ireland and Northern Ireland Tourism compete for their share of the spoils, with little sign of co-ordination.
A more dynamic interaction might see the iconic new Titanic Centre in Belfast twinning with its departure point at Cobh, or the Republic’s 2013 Gathering initiative being proactively woven into Northern Ireland’s eye-catching 2012 “Our Place Your Time” campaign.
Infrastructure upgrades that happen once every 50 years should be planned jointly on an island basis.
In energy, the island’s single energy market (SEM) is universally considered to be a success. Phillip Lowe, head of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Energy, speaking at an Economic and Social Research Institute energy policy seminar last November, pointed out that the next wave of EU reforms to complete the EU’s internal market in energy will prioritise low carbon generation and energy security and set higher targets for renewable energy.
The SEM could then work to make the island more energy secure with greater interconnectivity internally, with Britain and the Continent more self-sufficient through harnessing a lot more of its considerable renewable resources of wind, wave and biomass.
Upgrading the infrastructure to supply treated water is a costly and complex challenge to providers everywhere on the island.
Joint procurement procedures and the encouragement of local enterprises to innovate, combine and maximise economies of scale is an obvious area for intergovernmental collaboration.
Can this task be jointly planned so the obvious potential for the island – to be a model for developing, installing and managing an integrated world class 21st-century treated water infrastructure – is fully realised?
Such work is not easy. Tangible benefits can be hard to capture. The two systems have different methodologies for deciding whether their taxpayers’ money has been well spent. And each has its own priorities and operational cultures.
At a time of crisis and cutbacks, there are few incentives for civil servants to work with their colleagues across the Border.
However, these difficulties are not insurmountable. The North/South Ministerial Council based in Armagh is a unique example of successful sharing through collaboration. It could be better known across Europe if this success was promoted during Ireland’s EU presidency next year.
The Centre for Cross Border Studies, also Armagh-based, has developed a mould-breaking impact assessment “toolkit” for cross-Border co-operation that has been widely welcomed in Brussels and other European capitals.
It helps policymakers to determine when it is mutually advantageous to tackle practical problems jointly on a cross-Border basis.
As interjurisdictional relations within the EU and the UK become more complex, such innovation is increasingly necessary.
A peaceful and prosperous island remains of fundamental strategic interest to both the British and Irish governments. A new relationship between these islands should have at its heart a “prosperity process” for this island.
Ambition, imagination and innovation will be essential ingredients. The shared goal is a surely compelling one: an island in which our children can grow old secure in the knowledge that conflict and poverty are memories from the distant past.
Michael D'Arcy is a Dublin-based consultant with a long-standing interest in North/South business and policy interaction. He was co-author with Tim Dickson of Border Crossings: Developing Ireland's Economy