British Irish Association Conference

Thank you for your introduction.  

I am very pleased to be here in StCatharine’s in surroundings that have such a sense of history and learning.

And I am delighted to be at the British Irish Association Conference. I hope I can do justice to both the location and the occasion.

Your theme is “Towards a Shared Future – building on political agreement”.

I am glad to speak of the future – because now that the Agreement’s institutions have been restored, we can be confident that our future will be brighter than our grim past - with its suspicion and division, its impotent politics and endless violence.

Throughout the long years of the Troubles, we all lived in a world of depressed expectations and low aspirations.  And for some it was worse: Lives and livelihoods lost.  Whole communities ripped apart by violence and intimidation.

Since the ceasefires and the Agreement, things have changed for the better.  We now have:

With devolution restored, we can build on this progress.  We can show our neighbours in the rest of these islands, the rest of Europe and far beyond what we have to offer.

We can release the great potential that was locked away during the Troubles and push forward our ideas, our products and innovations to the wider world.   

But this isn’t just a chance to strengthen our economy.  It’s also an opportunity to heal the deep divisions in our society.

To achieve that politicians have to work together.  After all, if politicians cannot share power together, what hope is there of our people sharing streets together?  

As far as power-sharing is concerned, I am happy to say so far, so good.  And as a member of a party that has always believed in peace and power-sharing, I am heartened by that.  

But all we have had since 8 May is the honeymoon period.  The going will get tough as Autumn settles in and we start facing the hard decisions like on budgets and spending priorities.  That’s when power-sharing will be challenged.

It is also when we will have to show that we have real power-sharing – not power-carving, governing back to back.  If we are to deliver a shared future, we cannot have politicians dividing the spoils between themselves or allocating resources for narrow political advantage.  Our goal must be to work together to a common project in the common good – and nothing less.

We cannot have a situation where our past antagonisms are reinforced and we are equal but separate.  Balkanisation is the opposite of reconciliation – and only stores up trouble for the future ahead.  

We must avoid the development of ghettos - be they in our towns and cities or in our minds.

Nor can we achieve a society that is shared, but unequal.  After all, good relations cannot be built on unequal foundations.  Allowing or ignoring inequality will only breed resentment and perpetuate division.

So my vision is of a shared equal future where all our people have the same life chances and feel comfortable and safe together - at work, at home and at play.  

And by that I do mean all our people.  Equality is indivisible.  You cannot just have it for some, you must extend it to all – regardless for example of race, religion or sexual orientation.

Indeed, one of the most positive aspects of our changing community has been immigration.  

It has provided us with skills and labour and helped our public services and private enterprise to deliver.

For Northern Ireland to flourish in the world economy we need to harness this resource.  We must become a welcoming society.  We must recognise the value of the new and shrugoff the small minded and insular attitudes that have been part of our collective past.  The success of our immigrant communities is a success for all of us – and benefits us all.

I heard a phrase recently that I quite like.  It was from the BBC’s excellent programme - 'India with Sanjeev Bhaskar' and I have bent it a little to fit my theme.  “We will not have achieved our Shared Future until we see cultural diversity as an advantage and not an issue to be dealt with.”  That should be our goal.

To me a shared society is also one where opportunity and indeed wealth is shared.  That’s why a major priority must also be to tackle poverty - both by encouraging self sufficiency and by supporting those in real need.  And I am absolutely clear that this must be something reflected in the Programme for Government if it is to mean anything.  After all, responsible government has to be about giving choices to poor people that the rest of us take for granted.

Of course, the devolved administration does not control all the levers here.  Tax and welfare policy is set in London.  But through my Department’s Neighbourhood Renewal programme – and actions by many other Departments too – the Executive can play a major role.  

Of course, we can no longer expect nor should we want to address poverty simply through increasing financial support for individuals from government.

We want to encourage self sufficiency, not dependency.  We must tackle poverty, not manage it.  We must invest in communities, not just subsidise them.  As the Americans would say, we need to offer a hand up, not just a hand out.

We have to make sure people have the confidence skills and capability to realise the opportunities that are out there.  I know that for many years people felt anxious about moving from defined and often confined residential areas.  We must give people the confidence, the capacity and the security to travel, to learn new skills, meet new friends, find work and to better themselves.

To achieve real social mobility, and deliver real sharing, we have to tackle our physically divided society.

Take social housing – probably the most important area that I am responsible for.

The reality is that social housing in Northern Ireland is segregated.  The statistics are stark: 94% of estates are segregated by religion, rising to 97% in Belfast.  That is part of the appalling legacy of the Troubles.

Worse, estates of different religions are often divided by peace walls.  I recognise that these barriers are there because of fear, but I also believe they can reinforce division and deprivation.  After all, investors want stability – and peacelines suggest only barely contained strife.

I want to see the day when peacelines come down.  I know that it won’t be easy – and won’t come quickly.  Peacelines will only come down when communities are ready and feel safe.  

But we need to open the debate about them – and make people aware of their human and economic cost.

Of course, taking peacelines down is the NIO’s job.  But my department can help.  After all, if we take a peaceline down, we need to consider what goes in its place.  We cannot just leave wasteground where rival gangs of teenagers can meet to riot.  We should use those spaces to create safe shared spaces to benefit both communities – so that everybody wins when a peaceline comes down.

At the same time, we have to begin to tackle the wider problem of residential segregation without which there would simply be no peacelines.

Take North Belfast – a patchwork quilt of segregated communities.  In Protestant areas population drift has resulted in a high level of dilapidation and vacant homes.  

Neighbouring Catholic areas on the other hand are overcrowded and demand for housing is sky high.  

Clearly, we have to build affordable and social housing for all who need it, no matter who they are.  But it’s difficult in an area where space is so bitterly contested.

We have the chance to sort out this problem using currently vacant sites at Crumlin Road Gaol and Girdwood Army barracks in North Belfast.  This is a massive opportunity.  To provide new facilities for everybody to use.  And to provide badly needed housing as part of a living vibrant mixed use area.  Success will mean a genuine ‘Shared Future’ – with a site that is accessible to all.  

But success will not be easy to achieve.  Building social housing in large part to meet Catholic housing need arouses real fear amongst Protestants.  

Yet if we build no houses we perpetuate inequality and lose a real development opportunity for everybody.

I believe that this is just the area where we politicians have to provide real leadership.  Because this is not a matter that can be addressed through adversarial politics.  Indeed we have learned in Northern Ireland that little can be achieved through such an approach.  We have to recognise the needs and fears of each community and work together to address them all.

My department is committed to playing its role.  Through our North Belfast Community Action Unit we have supported genuine partnership working that can begin to tackle sectarianism and division throughout North Belfast.  But it is difficult work.  And there is no quick fix to solve all the problems of the area.  

And we should not kid ourselves.  It would be wrong to believe that the problem is confined to peacelines or deprived estates – in North Belfast or anywhere else.  Peacelines are but the faultlines where the two main communities, like tectonic plates, rub up against each other.  Indeed, peacelines are not the problem, but the symptom of a problem that runs much deeper – and right through all social classes in the North.

That’s why united action by all politicians across the whole of the North is so important.  The new Executive needs to agree on some key principles.  That people should be free to live where they want.  That people’s identities should be respected and protected.  That identity is something that you have inside – not something that you need to wave in other people’s faces.  That sharing does not dilute who we are, but enriches us all.  

And that, above all, our future lies together.  Put bluntly, either we swim together, or we drown apart.

Then we need to convert those principles into concrete actions.  To help resolve our disputes over flags and parades.  To see our space not as “ours” or “theirs” but “everybody’s” – and to take action to guarantee this.

One of the challenges that faces us as we set out to do this is continued paramilitarism.  Since nothing has been more responsible for driving communities apart than the actions of paramilitaries.

While one might not think that that is something affecting my department, in fact I have inherited a programme called the Conflict Transformation Initiative, which is to help the UDA move away from paramilitarism.

While I had reservations about this project, given that it was up and running, I have been willing to give it a fair chance to deliver.

I want to enable people to live normal lives; to free up communities so businessmen and women can create jobs without fear of extortion; to provide better role models for young people in loyalist communities than paramilitaries.

But instead in recent weeks we have seen unacceptable levels of violence.  In Carrickfergus and in Kilcooley we saw guns produced, a policeman shot, another man stabbed and rioting and wanton violence.  Not surprisingly after all this, the Chief Constable made clear that he would not give those involved in violence 50p.

I had no choice therefore but to announce on the 10August that the funding for the CTI project would cease within 60 days unless the UDA demonstrates that it is committed to ending violence and criminality.  Future support for this project will require demonstrable evidence from the IICD that the UDA has engaged meaningfully with them  and has started to decommission its weapons.  Because we simply cannot have guns floating around and being fired at the police and communities being held to ransom.

I will also want to see a clear commitment to quickly eliminate violence and criminality and the practices of extortion which represent such a leech on businesses throughout our community.

If the evidence and commitment that I seek are forthcoming the level of future funding for the project will remain in place for the three year period as long as the progress towards decommissioning and reducing violence and criminality is sustained.

In short, if they deliver, I will work with them as they travel on the path to peace.  I am happy to give that commitment.  But if however what I seek is not evident within 60 days the funding will stop and the project will be wound up.  

I would like to say also that, over the last four months, I have stated, and displayed, my commitment to tackling poverty and deprivation equally across all communities in Northern Ireland. Regardless of the outcome of the CTI project, I remain fully committed to this.

With the Good Friday Agreement now up and running, we have in place the political architecture to enable us to tackle our problems – poverty, prejudice, paramilitarism.  

We have the chance to deliver change.  To forge a new future of peace, prosperity and partnership.  Of course it will take time.  Progress will be measured not in days but decades.

But it is a once in a generation opportunity.  One that so many previous generations were denied.

When I left Queen’s I remember so many of my classmates leaving Northern Ireland - away from a violent and intolerant society.  They never returned.  We cannot afford for this to happen again.  Our children’s children will not forgive us if we fail them this time.

All members of the Executive have a duty and a responsibility to deliver choice where there was no choice before.