Ballynafeigh Conference: Cohesion, Sharing and Inclusion - 10 September 2008

Thank you Katie for your introduction and for the invitation to join all of you today in ‘sharing the learning from Ballynafeigh.’  

In fact, I heard you speak Katie speak not long ago at the Launch of the Shared Neighbourhood Programme in Springfarm, Antrim (more on that later by the way).  

Ballynafeigh, she told us then, was one of the first ‘shared communities’ in Northern Ireland.   Shared, in fact, for over 30 years and long before it became fashionable – through the worst of the Troubles; through the years of the Peace Process – and still shared today.  

What a great body of experience the people and community workers of Ballynafeigh must have to share!

Unfortunately, as Katie reminded us, many of those years were spent ‘swimming upstream:’

Today, I am very thankful to say, that tide has started to turn.  Today, in government and in communities across Northern Ireland we are working hard for a Shared Future.  

I will say, however, that I think we need a fresh resolve, within Government and statutory bodies, to give Shared Future and good relations their due place alongside equality, in the promotion of our Section 75 duties.  

Both these duties can contribute to a shared, better future for Northern Ireland.  But somewhere along the line, good relations has become the poor relation of equality – we need to put it back at the centre of all our endeavours in Government.  Not just because it holds equal weight to our equality obligations, but because these two duties are fundamentally linked.  We must see them as they are: complementary, not in conflict.  

In DSD for example, all our grants to the voluntary and community sector now require a commitment to good relations on the part of the organization.  And I see an opportunity to incorporate good relations further into Neighbourhood Renewal when we transfer that function to councils under the Review of Public Administration.  I want my colleagues in Government to think along the same lines.  

I’d like to tell you a little later exactly what we are doing in the Department for Social Development to support a Shared Future, but first let me set out briefly why I think a Shared Future is so important.

In Northern Ireland we have been divided for decades, perhaps even centuries.  But at long last we now have an end to armed campaigns and a political agreement that offers the prospect of political stability for the very first time.

That political stability is the first requirement for a better Northern Ireland and it allows us to pursue the second requirement, which is economic development.  – In fact, the central focus of the Executive’ s Programme for Government is on just that, growing the economy.  

But there is a third requirement.  If we are going to succeed in making the North a better place, then we must address social development.  

Considerable political progress has been made in recent times but, being honest, we still have a deeply segregated society.  In too many cases, we don’t live together; we don’t learn together; and a new generation of children, born in this century, is not growing up together.  

Earlier this year I visited New York and discovered that our sectarian segregation in the North is in fact more acute than the racial segregation that characterizes the well-known Harlem district in that city.  

And our new immigrant communities are not always welcomed as they should be though they are helping our public services deliver and our businesses compete.

‘No foreigners,’ a recent sign said – and not 100 miles away.  

We cannot sit back and wait for the problems in our society to right themselves; for our communities to heal themselves; or for our people to integrate themselves. If we are to be successful in delivering a successful economy the undoubted talent of our people must be accompanied by an increasingly tolerant society that enables that local  talent to flourish, creating a society where other creative and talented people want to join us .

My vision is of a shared future where all our people have the same life chances and feel comfortable and safe together – at work, at home and at play.  My vision is nothing more and nothing less than the people of Northern Ireland living together.  Living, not coexisting.  Respecting, as well as tolerating. Equal, but separate, will not do.

This Shared Future will not evolve on its own – it must be built.  And it must be built for our divided but changing community.

Our Programme for Government has been criticised for the absence of a specific commitment to a Shared Future.

Today I want to be very clear that a Shared Future is at the heart of all my work in the Department for Social Development.  

We are building new shared spaces with bricks and mortar through the New Housing Agenda and through the regeneration of our town and city centres.  And we want our Neighbourhood Renewal programme and other streams of support to the voluntary and community sector increasingly to reflect this agenda.  

In doing all this, I believe that we are giving people what they want.  

In the most recent Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey:

That’s why, when I announced the New Housing Agenda earlier this year, I said that I would bring forward new social and affordable housing schemes where occupants are from mixed traditions and are signed up to a ‘Shared Future’ charter.   

But it is just as important to introduce this concept in our existing housing estates or indeed to support where it already exists – in areas like Ballynafeigh.  

I mentioned earlier that Ballynafeigh Community Development Association was promoting good relations long before it became fashionable to do so – since 1974, in fact.   And with that long-standing local commitment in mind, this neighbourhood has been one of five selected to participate in the first round of the Shared Neighbourhood Project – bringing the Shared Future ethos to existing neighbourhoods.  

We want to support mixed communities like Ballynafeigh, or interface communities such as Lenadoon and Suffolk, which have a long history of working for a shared, better future: we want to feed their learning and experience into future housing and community and economic development initiatives.  

Because if we are to achieve a tolerant and integrated society where communities and individuals are free from the constraints of bigotry and sectarianism , where  our economy can flourish and grow we must bring people together.

In housing developments that provide for people to live together

And through community and economic development that encourages people to work together;  

There are, of course, other priorities to consider around building communities.  We must meet immediate housing need, for example.  And a shared ethos cannot be forced.  In some communities we face difficulty in finding the right balance between different needs.  Look at North Belfast – in the Crumlin Road Gaol/Girdwood Park site we have a huge opportunity to develop – but different communities have very different views about the way forward.  

Let me tell you another interesting statistic from the Life and Times Survey:  in 2005, 86% of local people said they considered their main shopping area to be a neutral space.  

For me, this is one of the most visible signs of change over the last decade. 10 years ago young people from the different communities of Belfast just didn’t see Belfast city centre as a safe, recreational space.  These days, the City Hall and Custom House Square are their undisputed territory!

The regeneration of the city centre has played a huge part in this, but in my Department we know that when we create new spaces in our towns and city centres, we must also try to create new mindsets.  Bricks and mortar are not enough.  

That’s why we designed the Laganside Events grant, for example, to promote use of the Belfast Laganside’s shared spaces by all by providing financial assistance, or free use of places like Custom House Square, for arts and cultural events.

And we are making space for our new communities.  Not far from here on the Ormeau Road, we are supporting the Chinese Welfare Association to develop a purpose built community centre with the aim not only of providing space and services but of creating greater cultural awareness within both the Chinese and broader communities, working towards the elimination of racism and discrimination.  

Building a Shared Future in Northern Ireland will be a lengthy and challenging task, but not a thankless one. The reward will be great: for that new generation of children – children of the 21st century – a peaceful, fair, prosperous and shared Northern Ireland will not be an idea in a strategy document, it will be a reality.  

Thank you Ballynafeigh for your work in bringing people together. and all the very best with the rest of your discussions today.