NORTHERN Ireland has enjoyed a massive fall in unemployment and an influx of new workers in the decade since the historic Good Friday agreement, new figures show.
It now outperforms every region of the UK except for the south-west, with only 4.2 per cent of its population out of work.
At the same time, the "peace dividend" has seen a long-standing pattern of emigration swapped for immigration, as it attr
acts migrants from new European Union member states such as Poland.
Figures from Westminster dramatically illustrate the effects on both sides of the religious divide since paramilitary action ended.
Some 18,558 people claimed unemployment benefit in the four Belfast parliamentary constituencies in January 1997.
But by January, this had fallen to 6,698 – an astonishing 64 per cent drop.
Across the province, around 100,000 more people are in work and the 4.2 per cent unemployment rate outperforms Scotland (4.9 per cent), the UK (5.2 per cent) and London (6.6 per cent).
Northern Ireland economics consultant John Simpson said the economic recovery had been "dramatic". But he warned that the economic turn-around "cannot be date-stamped at Easter 1998" and there was still widespread deprivation. Average weekly earnings in Northern Ireland stood at £330 last year – compared with £375 for the UK as a whole.
The figures emerged as politicians yesterday debated the legacy of the Good Friday agreement that restored – after several faltering starts – a devolved government and assembly to Northern Ireland.
The deal was struck in 1998 after many days and nights of painstaking negotiations and with the encouragement of the then prime minister Tony Blair and the former US president Bill Clinton.
The 108-member assembly took power in December 1999, though direct rule from London resumed temporarily in 2002 when devolution collapsed due to bitter arguments about the refusal of the IRA to decommission its weapons and the suspicion of a republican spy ring existing at Stormont.
Power returned in 2007 after an election left Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists and Martin McGuinness's Sinn Fein in command. This saw men who were once the bitterest of enemies work alongside each other as First Minister and Deputy First Minister.
Concerns remain about the presence of sectarian hatred and violence. However, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, reformed as the Police Service of Northern Ireland, is well on its way to the target of having 30 per cent Catholic officers by 2011.
Of the 450 loyalist and republican prisoners released early under the Good Friday deal, only 20 have had their licences revoked.
In 2005 the IRA ended its armed campaign and British troops now number 5,000.
Billy Hutchinson, a former Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) assembly member from north Belfast, said: "Sectarianism is still alive and well. People are still living in disadvantage and the only thing changed is the more peaceful atmosphere."
But former Northern Ireland minister Paul Murphy said: "The Good Friday agreement has most certainly stood the test of time. We must remember that without the agreement, none of this would have been possible."
Memories of a new dawnDAVID ANDREWS (Irish Government – Fianna Fail): "I remember politicians desperately trying to grab some sleep in the negotiation rooms as the deadline for agreement loomed.
"I also recall the conclusion was very sudden. I remember George Mitchell set the final deadline and then a phone call from (US President) Bill Clinton to (Ulster Unionist leader) David Trimble sealed the deal.
EILEEN BELL (Alliance Party): "I suppose one of the most striking memories I have is of some pretty senior republicans and loyalists queuing up for food that week and watching them engage each other in conversation. It may have only been only about the food, but it was remarkable to see former enemies engaging."
MARTIN McGUINNESS (Sinn Fein): "After the agreement was forged… I ran into a republican ex-woman prisoner in my home city who had spent a long time in Armagh Jail and I asked her 'What do you think?'
"Her response was 'Martin, what do you think?' and when I said I thought we had done the right thing, she said: 'That's all right for me'.
"I have to say it was bit scary and humbling that people were putting so much faith in our leadership."
LIZ O'DONNELL (Irish Government – Progressive Democrats): "The people who made the greatest political sacrifices suffered most. I think history will be fairer to David Trimble."
The full article contains 756 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
