George Quigley is looking at how to attract investors to Northern Ireland, writes Carissa Casey

Charm is often in short supply in public life in the North but Sir George Quigley has it in abundance. He is gracious, thoughtful, articulate and surprisingly innovative. Despite his advancing years, he could give many a chino-wearing IT whizz a lesson in blue sky thinking.

Before the hand of history slopes finally away from Northern Ireland's lengthy peace process, there's one final deal to be done.

Thirty years of mayhem and bloodshed has resulted in a huge surplus of public workers. Prison officers, probation officers, social workers et al make up a significant proportion of the middle class. There is just a single functioning plc and 98 per cent of the North's tiny private sector are small- to medium-sized companies.

"Unsustainable" was how Northern Secretary Peter Hain described the North's economy in late 2005. It was a remark the politicians took to heart, evidence, if it were needed still, that they fully intended to sit down in government together.

The scale of the challenge ahead should not be underestimated. To bring the North's economy into line with the public/private sector balance currently enjoyed by Scotland - far from ideal - the private sector would need to grow by 45 per cent, according to Sir George.

"Corporation tax is the sharpest tool in the box," he says.

Eighteen months ago, Sir George chaired a group of academics and business people called the Industrial Task Force. The aim was, among others, to see how the North could replicate the success of the Celtic Tiger.

"We share an island with an economy that has doubled in size in a decade. That has been a sobering experience for businesses and policy makers here," he says.

Sir George was a natural for the position. He was a civil servant in the early part of his career and was, at various stages, permanent secretary at the departments of manpower services, commerce, finance and personnel.

He jumped ship to the private sector and in 1989 became chair of the board of Ulster Bank. He remained involved in public life, serving on the Dearing Committee on Higher Education and chairing a review of the Northern Ireland Parades Commission.

He has also been chair of the Institute of Directors of Northern Ireland and the Royal Group of Hospitals Trust along with presidential stints at the Dublin-based Economic and Social Research Institute and Institute of International Trade of Ireland.

It is an impressive CV by any standards and displays a remarkable flexibility. His chair of the review of the Parades Commission, for example, would have taken him away from the rarefied air of corporate boardrooms and on to the streets of Northern Ireland's most troubled spots.

He has a doctorate in history - his chosen subject was the medieval wranglings of the Archbishops of Armagh - and believes that early discipline has helped him enormously throughout his career.

"Whenever I sit down to look at an issue, I look at the history - personal or political - that has created it," he says.

In March last year, when British prime minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern met in historic Armagh to kickstart the process which eventually culminated this week with a commitment to powersharing, they also met Sir George and other business leaders to discuss a serious study of the benefits of a cut in corporation tax.

In November, the Economic Research Institute of Northern Ireland, with sponsorship from the Industrial Task Force, produced a report highlighting the benefits to the North's economy and the British exchequer such a move would bring.

The study claimed a cut in tax to 12.5 per cent would double growth within five years, close the gap with the rest of the UK within 10 years, create 180,000 jobs by 2030 and, after an initial fall in tax revenue, would begin to become self-financing within a decade. "We're talking about a £17-18 billion return on an initial investment of £1 billion," says Sir George.

There are other significant issues likely to hamper economic development in the North, education being one of the most obvious. The Federation of Small Business complains that the current education system is not producing school leavers with the right skills for local businesses.

There are major literacy problems in certain areas. If local companies are not eager to employ local school leavers, it is unlikely that the multinational giants of the type Sir George is keen to bring to the North will find them too attractive.

At the other end of the scale, it has been estimated that up to 78 per cent of graduates leave Northern Ireland. They may be tempted to stay if there are quality jobs but again there are skills issues. Culturally, Northern Ireland's brightest favour the professions - medicine and law - rather than the hard technical skills required by the global economy.

"No one is suggesting tax is a silver bullet," says Sir George. "It is about creating a virtuous circle. If we can bring in the jobs we'll have the motivation to train people with the right skills.

"In the absence of some incentive, it is hard to see how that would happen otherwise on a significant scale. Even now there's plenty of talent here to get the show on the road."

While there is cross-party support on the issue, it is the Democratic Unionist Party that has put its full weight behind a tax cut. The others are more sceptical - pointing to legal issues with the European Commission and the obvious reluctance of a Scottish chancellor giving Northern Ireland a special break on tax.

Sir George volunteers that he has read the so-called Azores ruling by the European Court cited as the biggest barrier to allowing separate tax regimes within a sovereign state. He claims there is nothing in it to disbar differing regimes.

As for Scotland, he points out that it hasn't suffered the turmoil experienced in Northern Ireland and is much more developed as an economy.

"There has been a certain inertia about the tax issue. Some people were saying from the start it will never happen. My response is that it will never happen if we don't mobilise to make it happen," he says.

At last week's meeting with party leaders, Gordon Brown proposed a commission to look at the tax issue and a local tax office to promote Northern Ireland's "competitive" tax regime.

It is a contradiction in terms, Sir George points out. At the time of the announcement he declared himself bitterly disappointed but this week he was in a more optimistic frame of mind.

"We've won the intellectual argument," he says. "No one has delivered a killer punch."

In the absence of such a punch, he helpfully lists out the arguments for the opposition. It will encourage "brass plate" companies; companies will move to Northern Ireland from Britain; it will encourage transfer pricing. Safeguards can be built into legislation to safeguard against any of these, he claims.

"This is the endgame," he says. "Dr Paisley and Gerry Adams have the ability now to dock the ship. We don't need complicated allowances and grants. What we need is a headline tax rate that will attract investors and put us on a new trajectory far away from our troubled past."