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Category: Speeches

  • Gerry Adams – 1994 Speech in the United States

    Below is the text of the speech made by Gerry Adams on 24th March 1994.

    gerryadams

    Seventy years on from partition, it is universally accepted that partition has hampered and damaged the economic development of the island. This affects not only trade, industry and agriculture but, by association, all parts of the economy – including employment, health, education and social welfare systems – leaving them marginalised and critically underfunded. The people of Ireland are the victims of this process condemned to lower living standards. Up to £3 billion of funding is lost in so-called security costs every year. The Dublin government spend more than twice as much money every year on border ‘security’ as they do on industrial development.

    This fact has been recognised by the business community in Ireland. Plans for an island economy have been endorsed by the Dublin government and the Northern Ireland Office. The plans include import substitution, export partnerships, combined economic planning and infrastructural development.

    The belief underpinning this plan is that these moves towards a form of economic unity would boost monetary wealth. A 1991 confederation of Irish Industry report that up to 75,000 extra jobs could be created has been used by a range of politicians to endorse the plans. However optimistic the jobs target seems, it is clear that there is an ability for the current political structures to create an economic environment where efficiencies would create wealth and extra employment.

    However, there are two fundamental problems with this process. One is the lack of democracy and democratic control of the economy. The second is the inefficiencies in present structures and policies.

    Creating an island economy without creating democratic structures will leave the economy in the hands of a minority of financial institutions and business interests. So far it is Irish Business and Employers Confederation and the Confederation of British Industry that have put in place the structures for this island economy. Democratic control of any economic initiative is a prerequisite.

    No better example of why this should be can be found in examining the performance of the Industrial Development Board (Six Counties) and Industrial Development Authority (26 Counties). A 1993 report found that “the manufacturing industry in Northern Ireland has not performed well since partition”. Northern Ireland Economic Research and Social Council stated in 1993 that IDB grants had “acted as a substitute for low productivity”.

    In 1993, the IDB admitted that only half the jobs it assisted between April 1987 and March 1989 were still in existence after 12 months. The British Auditor General found that the IDB spent “millions of pounds funding unnecessary projects”. Last year in the 26 Counties, for every new job created by the IDA, another was lost. For this, the IDA spent £154 million. The IDA has spent £3 billion since 1969.

    This inefficiency is only one example of the failure of NIO and Dublin government economic policies. The potential benefits of the “island economy” strategy in its present form will be reduced if the failed industrial and economic policies being implemented now in both economies are merely recreated on a larger scale.

    There is no doubt that wealth is being created in the 26 and Six County economies. Creating a united economy could increase the potential for wealth creation, but without an economic democracy it will create less wealth and concentrate it in fewer hands.

    Recognising that a national economy must reflect everyone’s interests democratically, must be part of the process of building a new Ireland. Irish unity and independence will form the only basis for creating an economic democracy.

    Expectations Raised

    Since the IRA cessation last August there has been an unprecedented turn around in public perception and expectations of economic development in the partitioned Irish economy.

    This has happened for two reasons:

    (1) There is a genuine belief that a lasting peace in Ireland will have a twofold effect on the whole Irish economy. Firstly, both the Dublin and London governments will earn a peace dividend as the financial costs of the conflict dissipate. Secondly, there is a public belief that lasting peace will create a positive economic environment, increased domestic economic growth and increased inward investment.

    (2) It now also seems possible that after seventy years of the negative and damaging effects of partition a democratic island economy is a real possibility and that this will also yield a range of positive results for the whole economy.

    The Role of the US Government and Investment

    Sinn Féin welcomes the decision by the US President, Bill Clinton, to host the White House Conference for Trade and Investment and the other economic initiatives proposed in the 1st November, White House statement.

    Sinn Féin recognises that US inward investment has for over 30 years been a significant contributor to employment and economic development in Ireland. The role US investment plays throughout the Irish economy is a crucial one that needs to be examined now more than ever as the prospects of lasting peace offers tangible new opportunities for mutually beneficial inward investment.

    The November 1 statement said that the aim of the conference is to “show US companies that sustained peace is dramatically improving business opportunities on the island of Ireland and particularly in Northern Ireland and the border counties. American business should be in on the ground floor of these new opportunities.”

    Sinn Féin believes that the chief benefits of any new investment should be in increased employment and enhanced local economic development, particularly in those areas and communities most affected by the conflict.

    BACKGROUND

    The history of structured political discrimination in the Six Counties is well documented and a matter of public record.

    The responsibility for discrimination against Catholics lay for decades with the unionist controlled government at Stormont which functioned under the Authority of the London government. A system of political, economic and cultural apartheid was institutionalised under this system.

    The British government, as the sovereign power, had the ultimate responsibility for allowing this situation to exist.

    Since taking direct political control in 1972 the British government has passed two anti-discrimination laws. They have had little impact on the disparity in employment between Catholics and Protestants.

    Indeed an internal British government report in September 1992 for the Department of Economic Development concluded that the unemployment differential between Catholics and Protestants is not likely to change over the next ten years.

    Catholics are still over two times more likely to be unemployed. (23% of Catholic males are unemployed as against 9% Protestant males.)

    PARITY OF ESTEEM

    It is for all of these reasons that we welcome US concern and interest. President Clinton has brought a particular positive focus to this issue.

    The appointment of Senator George Mitchell, the conference for trade and investment and the other initiatives are all evidence of the administrations pro-active interest.

    Sinn Féin believes that progressive opinion in Ireland clearly supports the need to address a number of areas in order to enhance the potential for inward investment and to build on the hopes for a lasting peace.

    These are:

    –  Parity of esteem between the two major political allegiances in Ireland and the communities who hold these allegiances.

    – Equality of treatment.

    – Equality of opportunity.

    INWARD INVESTMENT

    Investment should complement local economic activity, and not be used as has happened sometimes in the past as a substitute for domestic economic activity. The net result of badly planned investment in the past has resulted in the inward investor and the host local communities both losing out.

    Sinn Féin proposes that for inward investment to be at its most effective in enhancing the benefits of a lasting peace, three sets of criteria need to be met.

    One, is that new investments meet a set of minimum labour and environmental standards with positive efforts made to site new plants and operations in the most deprived areas of Ireland and to hire workers from the most deprived communities.

    Two, new investment must not prop up the existing status quo of discrimination against Catholics in the Six Counties. It must seek to reverse the disproportionate level of discrimination suffered by Catholics. The British government must be encouraged to introduce new and effective anti-discrimination laws.

    Three, is that a new economic strategy for areas most affected by the conflict should be developed in parallel with new investment programmes. It is in the interest of both the investor and the host communities that every effort is made to maximise the benefit of new investment. This could come in the form of aiding the development of support clusters around an inward investing company, or planning strategies to harness the increased employment created by new investments to stimulate other commercial developments in the local economy.

    Developing links between local communities and the inward investor is a necessary prerequisite of any new investment initiatives.

  • Diane Abbott – 2013 Speech on Nelson Mandela

    Below is the text of the speech made by Diane Abbott on 9th December 2013 in the House of Commons.

    Ms Diane Abbott MP

    The fact that the House of Commons has spent the whole day paying tribute to Nelson Mandela is, of course, a tribute to the man himself, but it is also a tribute to the millions of Africans who struggled for their freedom. It is a tribute to activists such as Steve Biko, it is a tribute to the ANC and to the ANC in exile, but it is also a tribute to the thousands of ordinary people in, I believe, all our constituencies who stood on street corners and campaigned over the decades to make the release of Nelson Mandela possible.

    I will always remember where I was when I saw Nelson Mandela being released from prison, hand in hand with Winnie Mandela. I also remember the BBC newscaster who was doing the bulletin. It was a friend of mine and one of the most loved newscasters, Moira Stuart. I shall never forget that, because the struggle against apartheid and the struggle to free Nelson Mandela were part of the warp and weft of my life as a young activist in the late 1970s and 1980s. There were the meetings, there were the pickets, there was the examination of the oranges to make sure they were not South African and there were the demonstrations. For a certain generation, anti-apartheid was the iconic international struggle. There were times when we thought that it was no more than a struggle and Nelson Mandela could not be released, so seeing those television pictures of him hand in hand with Winnie was an extraordinary experience for me.

    We have heard some brilliant speeches today. The former leader of my party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) made one of the best speeches that I have ever heard him make, and I have heard him make some brilliant speeches since I was first a Member of Parliament in the 1980s. My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) made a very impressive speech, reminding us that Mandela was a politician first and last, and reminding us also of the importance of the practice of politics. My right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), who was one of the heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle—it might be said that that was his finest hour—told us about his childhood and his family, and presented a touching vignette of Winnie Mandela leaning down to kiss two white children.

    Let me say a little about Winnie Mandela. She did terrible things and terrible things were done in her name, but no one who was active in the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s will forget her courage and beauty when she was at the height of her powers. She endured long years in internal exile; she endured 18 months of solitary confinement, parted from her children; she endured beatings, and the blowing up and killing of her friends and comrades around her. As I have said, she did terrible things, but we cannot take away the fact that at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, she was a transcendent figure.

    We have heard about Nelson Mandela and his achievements today. I remember seeing him on his first visit to the United Kingdom. The extraordinary thing about him was not just his presence and charisma, but the fact that there was no sense of the bitterness that he was entitled to feel after spending 28 years in prison and seeing what had happened to his friends and family. As we have heard, it was that nobility of purpose that enabled him—it was his signal contribution—to drive through a peaceful transition to majority rule without the bloodshed that so many people prophesied. He also stood down after one term. If only more leaders in countries around the world were prepared to do as he did and let go of power.

    We live in an era that despises politicians, in which the word “political” is practically a term of abuse. We live in an era when too many young people believe that voting changes nothing, but I was privileged to be an election observer for those very first elections in which black people could vote. I remember leaving the centre of Johannesburg and driving all the way up to Soweto, on the edge of the city. We got there for 6 o’clock, but people had been queuing for hours. When the polling station opened, I saw figure after figure go into the polling station, mark the very long and complicated ballot paper and then step to the ballot box. Many of them looked around as they did so, as if even then someone would say, “Not you, you’re not allowed to vote.” It was being an observer at those elections that taught me the value of the ballot—that people can struggle and die for the right to vote.

    Nelson Mandela and anti-apartheid resonated with me as a young black woman just getting active in politics. The anti-apartheid struggle taught me that I was part of something international, and that politics was in the end about moral purpose. It taught me that if you believe in something, you should push on, because evil cannot stand. There is no more respected politician among young people in the UK than Nelson Mandela. It is a privilege to be allowed to speak today, and if people would only believe what Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle believed €”that you can alter your reality and it is worth getting involved in the struggle and understanding the issues our politics would be enriched so much.