In the first 50 years of Stormont, there was serious discrimination against the Catholic population across a range of policy areas. While the London government was well aware that this was happening, it chose to leave Northern Ireland to run its own affairs.
It was only when the Troubles blew up in 1969 that the UK government were forced to act, eventually closing Stormont in 1972 and taking direct control.
Throughout its period of direct rule, the UK government avoided making any major economic and social changes to the way Northern Ireland was run. Any serious reform within the North was left to one side by the British, until the people of Northern Ireland came together to govern themselves.
A similar hands-off approach has been taken by successive Northern Ireland secretaries when they have temporarily been left the reins of government when the Assembly was in abeyance.
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A key feature of Northern Ireland’s failure to take responsibility for its future was the assumption that “London will pay” to paper over the cracks.
When I served on the Northern Ireland Authority for Energy Regulation some 20 years ago, I was surprised to see proposals for schemes that were clearly a complete waste of money. Their proposers justified these projects by saying that London would pay. No matter the limited value of the projects, they would bring in “free” money for the North.
The North’s education system constitutes one of its most serious policy failures
This approach reached a climax a decade ago in the cash for ash scheme. When it was initiated, controls were lax – if London was paying, as was believed, value for money was not seen as important.
In the event, the UK treasury ensured that Northern Ireland would pay the cost, running to almost £500 million. However, the benefits of this huge investment literally went up in smoke.
The North’s education system constitutes one of its most serious policy failures, negatively affecting its social and economic wellbeing, and incomes. While the North was ahead of the South in introducing free secondary education in 1947, its education system now lags far behind the Republic’s.
As I have written before, the North’s system fails many working class children, especially those from a unionist background. Children are siphoned off at the age of 11 to separate grammar and secondary streams, where few secondary pupils progress to third level, and many drop out early.
The North could free up resources to provide a better education for all by integrating its schools, both grammar and secondary, catholic and protestant.
When Sinn Féin Minister Caitríona Ruane abolished the 11-plus exam for grammar school entry, unionist opposition prevented any integration of secondary and grammar schools. There will be a heavy economic and social cost for decades to come from splitting education resources four ways instead of having one strong unified system.
The North’s health system is failing, with major delays to see a GP, and longer waiting lists than in the South. Although the North’s spending per head on health is 10 per cent higher than England’s, its performance is a lot worse. The devolved Stormont administration has failed to achieve value for its higher relative spending on health.
Northern Ireland spends twice as much on public housing and 3.5 times as much on agriculture as the rest of the UK. These choices come at the expense of investing in education, health and infrastructure to support more rapid growth.
As Lisa Wilson of the Nevin Economic Research Institute recently noted, the North pays less in tax than the rest of the UK, primarily because incomes are lower. But it’s also the case that, unlike its English counterparts, Northern Ireland has no water charges, and property taxes (paid by the better off) are also much lower. The Treasury has made it clear that if the North chooses a low tax economy, the rest of the UK won’t pay for it.
Governing oneself means making the hard choices and setting priorities, not pointing the finger of blame at London. While many Northern nationalists see unification as a solution to the poor government they now experience, that is a fallacy.
If unification is to happen, the North must first deal with the serious economic and social failings that are under its control. Given the financial cost of unification to southerners, they may baulk at paying to subsidise Northern inefficiencies in administration, or educational duplication that delivers poor outcomes.
And the first acts of any unity government, if it were to come about, would be to push through the inertia barrier that today characterises Stormont, and begin to take the tough decisions.
