Professor Seamus McGuinness:

It is certainly one of the major glaring gaps. There is a problem with academic selection and of early school leaving in the North, which is also an issue. There is a more immediate problem as when we look at the drivers of economic growth in industrial economies, we find that vocational skills are also very important. Our major vehicle for vocational skills is the post-leaving certificate programme. We have evaluated it and it is very successful, particularly in terms of employment outcomes for young people and as a vehicle towards higher education, particularly for young people from lower-income backgrounds. The post-leaving certificate system in the Republic of Ireland works very well as a vehicle for vocational education. Approximately 30% of young people in the Republic of Ireland have these post-second level qualifications. It is only 10% in Northern Ireland and this is the large gap in terms of skills provision and skills output. Further education college provision and vocational education provision is a key gap. If it were addressed with a matter of urgency, it would have tangible impacts in terms of human capital structure and outputs of the Northern Ireland economy. Of course, that needs to be coupled with much improved industrial policy. As Professor Doyle pointed out, industrial policy in Northern Ireland in terms of foreign direct investment has not been good.

Despite the gaps in educational attainment between the North and the South, educational attainment is increasing over time in Northern Ireland but at a much slower rate relative to the Republic of Ireland. At the same time, we are seeing productivity per worker falling. That can only happen if the quality of jobs is falling over time. That puts real question marks around what agencies such as Invest NI have been doing. There are sets of policies, such as industrial and education and training policies, that can increase and improve productivity in Northern Ireland and they should be addressed in any case irrespective of the constitutional question.

If at the time we have a border poll those gaps are not addressed, the planning process must concentrate and we must have the answers before people go to the polls as to what we will do in these areas, over what time period, how do we expect productivity will adjust and how do we expect the subvention will adjust, and work that out so that people know how their lives will change and what are the costs and benefits of reunification. That requires tools, such as the use of macroeconomic tools and micro-simulation tools. We need to know what the demographics will look like. That is a labour-intensive process. It needs to be fact checked and that cannot be done individually. That needs to be commissioned by Government at a central level with the necessary oversight. Unfortunately, until that happens, we will be back here repeatedly running over these same issues.