Dr. Alan Barrett:

I will quickly respond to the very broad question, which was borderline about the sustainability of the Northern state. All nations and states have poorer regions and obviously in the Republic, we have poorer regions. It was not necessarily inevitable that Northern Ireland, as an entity, would have run into difficulties. It really was more a question of how policy, and especially policy from London, impacted. It is important to note that while a lot of money flowed into Northern Ireland over many years, it is not entirely clear that the money was used well. A former colleague of ours put it very succinctly that a lot of the money was used for current consumption purposes rather than real investment in Northern Ireland. Over the past number of years, Tory Governments have had different perspectives on regional-type policies than others. Failure was not inevitable but certain things were done over time that ensured that success was not inevitable either.