Dr. Seamus McGuinness:

There are a couple of things to recognise. There is this notion that a peace dividend would have emerged automatically following the Good Friday Agreement. The fact is the North's economy was at the bottom when compared with the Great Britain regional economies. It was already at the bottom in 1968 and 1969, pre-dating the Troubles. The Troubles undoubtedly made the entire situation worse. At the time of the peace agreement, huge structural gaps undoubtedly already existed, particularly compared with British regions. There were especially significant gaps in education. Another aspect is health, when one looks at the rankings of the health services. There was no investment at the time of the Good Friday Agreement to address those structural gaps. There was no extra money to overcome those difficulties. The funding arrangements that have pertained since then have never and will never address those structural gaps. Irrespective of the quality of policymaking, it will be increasingly difficult if the basic infrastructural system is not in place to try to grow the economy. As Dr. Barrett said, the siloed nature of policymaking-----