The North-South bodies to be established under the Belfast Agreement have an important psychological role to fulfil. Together with major reforms within Northern Ireland - affecting such matters as policing and equality of treatment - these and the North-South Ministerial will make it easier for nationalists to feel comfortable about participating positively in the self-government of that part of the island within a context of continued UK sovereignty, until and unless a majority in Northern Ireland may decide otherwise. But if this new North-South relationship is to prosper, these bodies must become much more than psychological boosts to Northern nationalists: they must start to play a visibly positive role in the development of the economy of Northern Ireland. There are several ways in which this could come about. First, there are sectors in which joint North-South action could offer economies of scale, for example energy. Hitherto, separate development in the two parts of the island has involved serious diseconomies. It has raised electricity costs unnecessarily, especially in the North, where, in order to extract a high price from the privatisation of electricity, the former Conservative government authorised the private purchasers of the system to charge quite extortionate prices until 2010.
In view of this exploitative element, it could take some time for the regulatory authorities, North and South, to restructure the two separate, although linked, systems to provide a single market within which competitive pressures could be brought to bear upon the cost of electricity in both areas. An essential element of any such restructuring would be a strengthening of the island's transmission system.
Another aspect of energy policy where an integrated approach is needed is gas pipelines. With both parts of the island due to become dependent within a measurable period on imported gas supplies for electricity generation as well as heating, two cross-channel pipe-lines will clearly be needed to ensure security of supply.
While, for the reasons given, Northern Ireland should in the longer run be the principal beneficiary of an integrated approach to energy policy, the Republic might also benefit in a different way. The United Kingdom has been able to reduce its air pollution significantly because much of its pollution derived from the use of coal to generate electricity, a practice that has now been phased out.
In our State there has been a similar but less significant shift away from coal for electricity generation. But the beneficial pollution effect of this has been much more than offset by our extraordinary rate of economic growth.
In the eight years to 1997 peak electricity demand rose by half, thus increasing air pollution from this source. And this problem has, of course, been further aggravated by the rise of over 40 per cent in the number of motor vehicles. This electricity-generation pollution problem is now about to be intensified by the construction of a peat-fired station in the midlands which, although apparently the best of its kind in pollution terms, will nevertheless add to the problem.
Against this background it is very difficult to see how without extraordinarily tough, and unpopular, measures of control this State can hope to meet the strict air pollution standards, the achievement of which we are now internationally committed.
One possible way of side-stepping the problem, at least partially, might be to reach an agreement within the framework of the new North-South Ministerial, British-Irish Council and British-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference in order to secure the benefit of the UK's pollution leeway. This could be done by building some of our future generating capacity inside Northern Ireland. Even though this might involve us in additional costs, these might be less than would be involved in alternative approaches to this pollution problem.
It seems self-evident that we require an agreed energy policy for the island as whole, perhaps involving a single regulatory agency. The Framework Document of February 1995 was less ambitious, proposing merely harmonisation of energy policies, North and South. This proposal was carried through into the Mitchell document of April 6th.
However, at the final stage of the negotiation, energy projects and all the other 25 areas that had been listed for possible harmonisation action, many of them potentially of great benefit to the North, were dumped at the request of the UUP, which for presentational reasons was clearly concerned at that stage to minimise the number of areas potentially involving North-South action.
However, pollution survived as one of 12 possible areas to be considered for "co-operation and implementation", either through an agreed body at the all-island level or through co-operation between existing bodies. Three areas were specifically excluded by the UUP from this list. Two were cultural, Irish-language promotion (in respect of which within Northern Ireland the British government has entered into extensive and detailed commitments) and, rather surprisingly, the arts.
The third area involved export promotion and assistance for the development of indigenous industries. As in the case of energy, these are areas from which Northern Ireland has much to gain from North-South co-operation, as our promotional agencies have great experience and considerable sophistication.
The proof of the potential benefits to Northern Ireland that could arise from greater access to our export promotion skills lies in the extent to which, even in the absence of any formal co-operation arrangements, many Northern producers of consumer goods quietly use the services of An Bord Trachtala, the Irish Trade Board, to help facilitate and promote their exports, with the full co-operation of that agency. It seems clear that a joint trade promotion organisation could increase the effectiveness of the work currently undertaken by our agency on behalf of Northern exporters, while still leaving it open to them to use British channels to facilitate exports of certain types of goods, e.g. missiles (!) In these matters compelling short-term political considerations appear at this stage to have taken precedence over the actual economic interests of Northern business people. But this is unlikely to be the last word on these issues. An aspect of the agreement that has so far attracted little attention is North-South co-operation on EU issues. Under the agreement, the North-South Ministerial Council is to consider the European Union dimension of relevant matters. And it adds that arrangements are to be made to ensure that the views of the council are taken into account and are represented appropriately at relevant EU meetings.
Now, by definition the views of the North-South council must be the views of the Irish Government, which will be a participant in the council. But the council's views of many issues may not coincide with those of the British government.
Indeed, experience has shown that for geographical reasons, as well as because both parts of Ireland are relatively small, and by European terms have relatively large agricultural sectors and are peripheral, Northern Ireland's interests on many EU issues tend to be closer to those of the Republic than to those of Britain.
Moreover, on a number of occasions British governments have been reluctant to seek or to support proposals for special arrangements for Northern Ireland lest such a stance spark off a demand by Scotland or Wales for similar concessions. Thus, it may well be the case that the representation of the council's views in Brussels will more often than not be undertaken by the Irish Government. And it might even be possible for the Government to delegate to a Northern minister the representation of an agreed North-South council position at the Council of Ministers in Brussels. On other matters, of course, the British government, as the sovereign power, would continue to represent Northern Ireland in Brussels. For many years I have felt that relations between the North and the Republic could be greatly strengthened through the development of such a joint North-South approach to the EU. The terms of the agreement now seem to open this possibility, although no doubt some time will elapse before we see such joint action taking place in the European forum.