Thursday November 30 1995

The peace dividend - smokescreen for British cuts?

BY EOIN O BROIN

IT IS COMMONPLACE to hear politicians assert that the peace process has provided us with the opportunity to create new economic structures in Ireland. The much vaunted `peace dividend', while generating endless debate, has failed to achieve any coherent form. All agree on its potential existence, yet none agree on its size, purpose or how it will be implemented.

So what exactly is this `peace dividend', what are the politics behind it and who is it being aimed at?

In August of this year the Northern Ireland Economic Council (NIEC) held a one-day conference entitled Through Peace to Prosperity at which the then chairperson George Quigley opined:

``Northern Ireland has a unique opportunity to enhance the performance of the local economy, following the cease-fires of the republican and loyalist paramilitaries.''

What Quigley was pointing towards was the extent to which the operation of the Six County economy would shift in the advent of ``a durable settlement being reached''.

While inward investment is to be welcomed, many community activists have expressed fears that the British government will attempt to replace its own expenditure with that from international sources.

Exactly what kind of shift depends not only on the economic strategies employed, but also on one's analysis of the causes of the conflict. For those at the NIEC, economic instability and dependency were the result of two decades of `paramilitary activity'; remove that obstacle and the potential for a `normal' economy arises.

Questions of partition, poverty, social marginalisation and discrimination are seen as effects rather than causes of the conflict, with the role of the state conspicuously absent.

However the voices of community activists are beginning to be heard, offering an alternative agenda. Despite acrimonious relations in the past between such activists and policy makers, tensions are beginning to ease, although this does not mean that all is well. Major divisions remain and are becoming more pronounced as the debate develops.

The key word in this debate is ``investment'' and the extent to which the changed political circumstances could lead to an expansion of the level of investment into the Six Counties.

Of prime importance is the question of future British government expenditure. While the pre-cease-fire subvention was in excess of £3 billion annually, it has been estimated that 52% of this was `security' related. The question is where exactly will this money go in a new political context.

Despite reassurances by John Major that the subvention is secure, the Conservative government has already agreed plans to reduce it by 25% over the next three years.

Alongside British government expenditure lies European Union and American investment, primarily in the forms of the Delors package and the International Fund For Ireland (IFI).

The Delors package was secured by ex-European Commission President Jacques Delors. It is £231 million over a four year period with an exclusive emphasis on the regeneration of communities disproportionately affected by the past 25 years of conflict.

The IFI money, aimed primarily at commercial activity, amounts to £40 million a year and while some stress is placed on community regeneration, particularly in border regions, its underlying ethos is building the private sector.

While inward investment is to be welcomed, many community activists have expressed fears that the British government will attempt to replace its own expenditure with that from international sources.

The implications of such Whitehall manoeuvres is twofold. Firstly a dramatic reduction of the level of government investment, as Westminster reneges on its responsibility to assist in regenerating those communities it has continually attempted to tear asunder during the past 25 years. Secondly, a brief period of international investment, which, while creating the impression of a growing `peace dividend', acts as a smokescreen to hide the still abject state of the economy and its gross inequality.

While such a scenario would undoubtedly produce a `normalised' economy with private sector growth as the prime target of international investment - as envisioned by Quigley and the NIEC -it would add little to the quality of life for those who have borne the brunt of decades of war and discrimination. It certainly would fail to produce real sustainable growth within either the Six Counties or the island as a whole and could only be seen as a squandering of the very real opportunity to create new democratic and just political and economic structures.

What is needed is sustained debate from the bottom up, where policy makers, politicians and potential investors engage with communities at a grass-roots level with a view to producing mechanisms for real community-led economic regeneration. Unless the underlying causes of the conflict are addressed the possibility of a real `peace dividend' will remain as elusive as ever.