Donegal Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Cllr Pearse Doherty calls for investment for the Northwest ay meeting with European Union Commission Staff

Published: 21 October, 2006

Donegal Sinn Féin councillor and general election candidate, Pearse Doherty, has said that the European Union has a significant role to play in bringing about a united Ireland, and has called for the northwest to be assigned objective one status. Cllr. Doherty was speaking following a visit to the European Parliament in Brussels last week as part of a Sinn Fiin delegation that attended a major conference on how the EU can assist the process of Irish reunification.

The conference brought together academics, MEPs and an all Ireland delegation of Sinn Féin activists and elected representatives from local councils, the Assembly, Udaras na Gaeltachta and Leinster House to discuss the politics of reunification.

Cllr Doherty said,

"The conference brought together a wide range of people from various backgrounds to discuss how the EU can assist in the process of Irish reunification in the time ahead and to look at some lessons from other countries in Europe. We had contributions from German academics on their experiences of unification and Cypriot MEPs on their prospects for unity.

"From an Irish perspective it is clear that the partition of Ireland has been a complete and abject failure and we are still living with the negative impact of partition, such as: institutional discrimination and inequality, disadvantage and economic stagnation in the North of Ireland. As a demonstration of its stated objectives of peace, reconciliation and the removal of borders, the EU has a responsibility to assist the process of Irish reunification.

"The single greatest impediment to coherent economic development in Ireland is partition. EU programmes and policies should encourage all-Ireland development. The Community Support Framework, the National Reform Programme and the Common Agricultural Policy, should be among the fields in which divided (and sometimes contradictory) policies and strategies are replaced by a coherent all-Ireland approach.

"Peace III provides communities at home with a significant opportunity to continue important work across a wide range of areas including promoting social inclusion, addressing the legacy of discrimination, building good community relations and promoting national reconciliation. It also provides important opportunities for community empowerment, promotion of Irish language development, assistance for victims and survivors of the conflict and reintegration of former political prisoners into family and community life.

"There are a number of other steps which the EU can take in order to encourage greater integration and to ensure the successful conclusion of the Peace Process, including, exempting state aid to support reunification from EU competition regulations (as was the case with German unification). Recognising the Cross-border Corridor Groups as a good model of partnership and encouraging the British and Irish governments to give such partnerships a more strategic role in the allocation and distribution of funds. And supporting the development of all-Ireland public sector and civil society institutions are all practical steps that the EU could take.

Cllr Doherty added

"During our visit to Brussels we held a meeting with EU commission staff who are directly responsible for dealing with the structural funds that Ireland receive. We are all aware that from 2007 Ireland will no longer be classified as an objective one status area and as a results structural funding from the EU will no longer be available to us at the level that we were in receipt of up until now. This status has been lost as a result of the growing Irish economy particularly in the east coast, however the Border Midlands and Western region (BMW) of which Donegal is part of, has not reached the same level of wealth as the rest of the country and will therefore continue to receive support from the EU to the value of approximately 900 million euro over the next six years.

"While this funding is welcome it is only a fraction of the financial support that Ireland had received previously. As the commission staff themselves said, it is estimated that it will be less that 1% of what our total spend under our proposed national development plan will be, compared to an existing level of support of between 40% and 50% of our current national development plan.

"During our meeting with the EU commission staff, I along with my party colleagues had made it very clear to them that the Northwest and Donegal in particular had not benefited in the same way that the rest of the country has from EU structural fund support. We presented to the commission staff all the statistics on the levels of unemployment, social welfare dependency, and educational attainment and all the other poverty indicators that demonstrate that Donegal and the northwest region is clearly a region that is in need of continued EU structural funding.

"I pressed the case for a re-designation of the northwest as an objective one status area, as although the Border Midlands and Western region (BMW) as a whole has reached levels of wealth that fall above the levels required to retain objective one status this would not be the case if we were to look only at the counties of Donegal Sligo and Leitrim. When we add to these three counties the counties of Derry, Fermanagh and Tyrone we now have a region that could be eligible as an objective one status area. There is no doubt that if the Northwest were to achieve such a status the benefits would be substantial as structural funds have the potential to provide many opportunities for genuine, cross border, all Ireland development to tackle the infrastructural deficit which continues to exist in the Northwest. Equally, if used properly by the Irish and British governments, they could go some way to addressing the negative social and economic legacy of partition.

Cllr. Doherty concluded,

"We were told that this would be a political decision and that it would be up to both the Irish and British governments to request such a region to be designated as objective one status. There is no doubt that the staff of the commission following our meeting with them, have a very clear understanding of the needs of the Northwest region and the role that the EU must play in addressing these.

"As part of the peace talks Sinn Féin has argued for a 15 billion euro Peace dividend from both governments and last week they have made a provision for such an economic package in their St Andrews agreement. They have also committed themselves to work together to bring forward financial initiatives for the Northwest region. It is my belief that one of these initiatives must be the obtainment of objective one status for this region. Over the next number of weeks I will be pursuing this issue and will be raising it with both Governments."