In all nine counties of Ulster, job opportunities have improved in recent years, as the local economy has been strengthened. Growing business links between the two parts of the island have helped the process.

In Northern Ireland, says the Industrial Development Board in Belfast, economic growth has been faster than in any other UK region. This year's growth is predicted to be 3.4 per cent, compared to the British average of 2.6 per cent.

In the Republic, even though we've climbed down from the dizzy heights, growth this year should still be around 6 per cent.

The Northern statistics have been particularly favourable in recent years. One benchmark is unemployment, which is at its lowest level since records began.

Back in 1986, the North's unemployment rate peaked at 17.2 per cent, one of the worst in Europe, but last month it was just 6.2 per cent, one of the lowest in Europe. By the end of this decade, an extra 40,000 jobs are forecast for Northern Ireland.

However, companies like Nortel Networks, once regarded as the jewel in the crown of inward investment, have laid off significant staff numbers recently because of the global IT recession.

Once again, too, doubts have been raised about the survival of the Belfast Agreement, factors considered very important by the local business community in the North in boosting business confidence. If the Executive fails to survive, it will be seen as very damaging to continued business growth.

During the last fortnight of July, after the Twelfth, very few people, if any, are around to comment. For many business people in the North - and not just those in tourism, July is a close-down, write-off month.

Many other sectors have come on well in the North, including call centres, where the incentives are greater than elsewhere and staff availability is better and staff turnover lower than in comparable regions elsewhere. Leading companies have continued to announce call centre developments in the North, such as the Bank of Ireland, which recently decided to locate a call centre in Newry.

Other agencies in the North, in addition to the IDB, are in equally buoyant mood, despite the recent deluge of strife-torn video news on TV screens around the world.

Ledu, which promotes the smaller business sector, says that in its most recent financial reporting period, 1999/2000, sales by client companies totalled over £1.4 billion sterling, while an additional net 1,320 jobs were created. Ledu adds that in terms of the geographical distribution of export sales by its client companies, exports to the Republic showed the strongest growth, up by 13 per cent.

In the three Ulster counties on the southern side of the Border, Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan, similar restrictions on growth have existed and the Northern troubles over three decades didn't help. Like the rest of Ulster, traditional sectors, such as clothing and textiles, have gone through difficult times and many jobs have evaporated.

Co Donegal suffered all these problems in abundance, not helped by its difficult geographical position, virtually cut off from the rest of the Republic over the years. However, recent road upgrades, air links to west Donegal and Derry airports and a growing number of cross-border initiatives have all helped reverse previous dismal trends. Joe McHugh, the north-west manager, IDA Ireland, based in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, says that a number of recent investments have started to make a considerable difference.

He cites the PacifiCare health claim processing company from California, running a back-office operation in Letterkenny and employing about 200 people.

Prumerica Systems of Ireland has a software development centre, also in Letterkenny, and eventually hopes to employ 600 people there. In Donegal town, in the south of the county, Abbott Laboratories, one of the big names in healthcare manufacturing, is investing in a major new production facility.

All kinds of social developments throughout these three Ulster counties are helping make them much more agreeable, with residential developments such as the big recent shopping centre development in Monaghan town. Cavan town is another thriving urban centre. Good quality new housing is widely available at much more affordable prices than Dublin.

It's the same story from Enterprise Ireland, where its north-west region director, based in Sligo, Barry Egan, says that more and more companies are finding the region a good place in which to locate new developments, because of staff availability and improving infrastructure.

Cross-border linkages are helping draw together the nine counties of Ulster. One example is the technology enterprise start-up programme, which is helping to create new firms on both sides of the Border.

Magee College in Derry is strong in such faculties as science and informatics.

New agencies that have arisen from the Belfast Agreement, such as InterTrade Ireland, based in Newry, are also helping this process of economic drawing together and co-operation, for everyone's benefit.

These days, the north-west embraces Derry and Donegal as one natural region: this coming together for business success, can be seen throughout the nine counties.

What Barry Egan of Enterprise Ireland says about Donegal, regarding infrastructural improvement, a good quality way of life, lower house prices and staff availability, applies right across the historic province.