Professor Seamus McGuinness:

On the question of why will this not happen under the current political arrangements in the North, the structural gaps in the Northern Ireland economy were there. They were there in 1968 and 1969 because when we look at the data the region was at the bottom of per capita GDP and obviously the period of the Troubles made that worse. By 1998, huge structural gaps existed. When we compare the North with British regions, again, it is the worst performer in education, and health services in respect of health outcomes. The funding arrangements in the block grant has never addressed those structural deficits. Even if there are good policies, if there is not the means to fund them then what we get, at best, is stagnation in terms of performance or gaps opening up, and we are seeing gaps opening up now. I do not believe that the current funding arrangements provide an opportunity to deliver the necessary structural reforms in those key areas, particularly around educational skills, health because healthy workers are needed to have a healthy economy, and infrastructure. It is going to be very difficult to generate the changes that would unleash the North's economy under the current structures.