NORTHERN IRELAND’S politicians should build for the future and deliver on the promise of devolution, the British prime minister has said.
Addressing a special sitting of the Stormont Assembly, David Cameron pressed local representatives to work to unite society, to tackle division and to rebalance the economy and build prosperity.
Congratulating Assembly members on the political advances made in recent years, Mr Cameron said Queen Elizabeth’s visit to the Republic illustrated the scale of progress achieved.
But he said people must look to the future and not be hampered by unresolved legacy issues.
Recalling the appeal to all Irish people by King George V when he opened the first northern parliament in 1921, Mr Cameron urged local representatives “to stretch the hand of forbearance and conciliation” and to join in making a new era of peace and goodwill.
While he acknowledged significant challenges are still to be overcome, the prime minister praised the courage and commitment of “people here” as well as Irish and US governments throughout the peace process.
He pledged his government would stand with the people of Northern Ireland to defeat the dissident paramilitary threat, but added that he did not view the North through the “prism of past and present security issues”.
He then outlined his vision for the future, identified the need to advance beyond the peace process and a focus on narrow constitutional matters to the economic and social issues which affect people.
Stressing the need to address community division and sectarianism, he noted a “depressing fact” that the number of so-called peace walls in Belfast and Derry has increased from 37 to 48.
Catholic and Protestant communities remained separate in too many areas, he added, with the costs of such division estimated at £1.5 billion (€1.7 billion) to say nothing of the “social cost”.
More needed to be done and he insisted his government would be supportive: “But this is something that’s mainly in your hands. Northern Ireland needs a genuinely shared future; not a shared-out future.”
Citing his apology for the British army’s actions in Derry on Bloody Sunday 1971, Mr Cameron said: “Others too must think about how to face up to their part in the mistakes and tragedies of the past . . . We owe it to the people of Northern Ireland to face forwards, and not endlessly examining events from before. That does not mean I rule out any public inquiries in the future. But I stand by my pledge that there will be no more costly and open-ended inquiries into the past.”
He would remain committed to the unity of the UK, he said, but admitted the North’s constitutional future did not lie with him or his government.
He said he would stand by the devolution settlement, in which he believed “heart and soul”, and looked to the possibility of a more normal Assembly with a formal Opposition agreed to by the parties at Stormont.The North remains overdependent on the state for economic activity, he added, but he accepted the region’s special status.
In a stark warning, he said the days have ended when the answer to every problem is to ask the treasury for more money. It was time to look at new ways to revive the private sector. He acknowledged the drive to cut local corporation tax and promised to consider the outcome of consultation on the issue later this month.
He told Assembly members that his “door is open when circumstances require it”, but added it was up to local people to get on with the task at hand. The new political dispensation afforded the chance to “move on from the politics of endless negotiations . . . to address people’s everyday concerns”.