Former Irish president Mary McAleese said it is the job of Government to ensure “hard to reach” communities enjoy the peace dividend.
Professor McAleese, referencing that she was born and reared in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast, said it had 70% unemployment when she was growing up and she believes that statistic has remained the same.
Chairing a panel at the Good Friday Agreement conference at Queen’s University Belfast, she spoke of the importance of action taken by Governments to ensure the dividend is enjoyed by all.
Prof McAleese said: “I think there are hard to reach communities here, who probably, when they hear us talk about peace dividend and prosperity, are saying: ‘Where?’
“And that is also down to governments. That’s down to governments deciding to really use this peace dividend to penetrate deeply, deeply, deeply into historically excluded communities.
“If they were empowered, if they were raised to the best they can possibly be, I wonder after 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement, would things be still as difficult politically on the strand one side?”
Strand one of the Good Friday Agreement deals with the democratic institutions in Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, during the same panel discussion, Jonathan Powell – former Downing Street chief of staff for Sir Tony Blair – said the Windsor Framework will not be reopened.
“The British Government had to find a solution that made that border as invisible as possible, and I think that’s what they’ve tried to do with the Windsor Framework, and I think it does the best job that can be done from that point of view,” Mr Powell said.
“I very much hope the danger of Brexit is going to pass, I very much hope that the DUP is sensibly taking its time to think about this and consider how to make this work, that they will later, after elections, perhaps look at this in a more positive light because otherwise we’re in a complete cul-de-sac as far as the political future of Northern Ireland is concerned.
“There is no way out because we cannot reopen that agreement again with the EU – that is not possible, no prime minister now or in the future is going to do that.
“So, the only alternative is to make the politics work, so I hope, and believe, actually, that they will find a way to make this work, there may be other things that have to be done but they won’t be reopening that.”
Also during the panel discussion, former Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy said resolving problems from Brexit is crucial to the future of Northern Ireland.
Mr Murphy, who was also deputy to Mo Mowlam – Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the time of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement – said: “When people say to me that members of the European Union had nothing to do with the peace process, I think it has a lot to do with it.”
He added: “Whatever way we look at it, and I think the Windsor Framework is a good attempt to try and deal with it, it does mean that there’s a big problem here because of what happened over Brexit.
“How we resolve that is probably crucial to how the future of this place is over the next number of months, but resolve it we must because if we can’t do that then everything we’ve heard about this morning, not everything but a lot of it, could be put at risk.”
Mr Murphy said the rules about how the assembly is suspended may need to be adjusted.
He said: “Should we change the agreement in order to give some accommodation to a new regime which would mean that you can still have your disagreements, but you can’t bring down the whole assembly and the whole executive because of it.”
He added: “I know of no democracy in the world, where you actually bring down the whole apparatus of government because you disagree on something.”
