27 February 1997 Edition
Fianna Fáil's Square Wheel
``Let's get on and get the business done, leave the political agenda for later''. This was Séamus Brennan, Fianna Fáil spokesperson for Transport, Energy and Communications speaking at the launch of his party's new position paper on North-South Economic Co-operation.
Speaking in Dublin's Davenport Hotel, Mr Brennan told invited guests and the media that ``this is a business document about how we do business on the island''. Many aspects of the document are very positive. Fianna Fáil proposes: Designating the island as a single tariff zone for phone calls with standardised mobile phone frequencies; establishing a direct Dublin/Derry rail service; upgrading all border road crossings; developing a new national primary route between Dundalk and Sligo.
However, throughout the Fianna Fáil presentation there was a constant harping that ``this document doesn't have a political threat to anybody'' or to quote Bertie Ahern, ``We have enough problems with the 800 year old struggle than raising it in this document''.
An Phoblacht asked Deputy Brennan by who and how would the strategic plan be implemented. Would it involve the NIO? He said it would. What about a local input from elected politicians or some sort of democratic island authority for infrastructural development, we asked? He said he ``didn't want to go into that sort of details''.
The job of government, according to Seamus Brennan, is ``to facilitate the market sector through developing infrastructure in transport, energy and communications''.
This was the message to be repeated at regular intervals: Government - business - the market. The politics of the island economy, the need to protect consumers, to give local communities a voice, to combat discrimination, to ensure that development is planned equitably on both sides of the border and throughout all the regions rural and urban.are all to be overlooked. Why? Because these are political, not economic issues.
Fianna Fáil logic is that anything political to do with the Six Counties or the island economy might be contentious and therefore cannot be let interfere with the need for business to do better from the emerging island economy.
It is possible to railroad economic development without ensuring political consent. However, the cost of ignoring people's democratic rights are in the long run too high a price even for Fianna Fáil to try and find a way to pay.
Speaking in Dublin's Davenport Hotel, Mr Brennan told invited guests and the media that ``this is a business document about how we do business on the island''. Many aspects of the document are very positive. Fianna Fáil proposes: Designating the island as a single tariff zone for phone calls with standardised mobile phone frequencies; establishing a direct Dublin/Derry rail service; upgrading all border road crossings; developing a new national primary route between Dundalk and Sligo.
However, throughout the Fianna Fáil presentation there was a constant harping that ``this document doesn't have a political threat to anybody'' or to quote Bertie Ahern, ``We have enough problems with the 800 year old struggle than raising it in this document''.
An Phoblacht asked Deputy Brennan by who and how would the strategic plan be implemented. Would it involve the NIO? He said it would. What about a local input from elected politicians or some sort of democratic island authority for infrastructural development, we asked? He said he ``didn't want to go into that sort of details''.
The job of government, according to Seamus Brennan, is ``to facilitate the market sector through developing infrastructure in transport, energy and communications''.
This was the message to be repeated at regular intervals: Government - business - the market. The politics of the island economy, the need to protect consumers, to give local communities a voice, to combat discrimination, to ensure that development is planned equitably on both sides of the border and throughout all the regions rural and urban.are all to be overlooked. Why? Because these are political, not economic issues.
Fianna Fáil logic is that anything political to do with the Six Counties or the island economy might be contentious and therefore cannot be let interfere with the need for business to do better from the emerging island economy.
It is possible to railroad economic development without ensuring political consent. However, the cost of ignoring people's democratic rights are in the long run too high a price even for Fianna Fáil to try and find a way to pay.