Economic adventures between North and South will be hard to untangle in the post-Nama world
FROM FAILURE to success, then back to failure: small wonder the demoralising arc of the economy has stumped politics. The National Asset Management Agency may be some way short
of its final form. But from the moment Nama became a household name and everyday topic, well ahead of its regulations being set and function defined, unionist and republican Northern Ministers have been fretting about its intentions on their patch, and in identical terms.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness voiced concern that a fire sale of bad debts would “damage and distort the economy” – which is sweet from a man who organised the bombings that destroyed the business centre of his home town. Democratic Unionist Minister for Finance Sammy Wilson scoffs at cross-Border meetings as “North/Southery”, but demanded a direct say in Nama. The suavity of Brian Lenihan soothed him in record time. The unanimous McGuinness/Wilson readiness to be reassured says it all about the dependence of the North’s economy.
It took a while before some Northerners could credit that good times were rolling on the other side of the Border. For older nationalists, perhaps especially those without money or interest in business, the boom at first brought innocent pride in a state they remembered through dire years. Then they were shamed by its inability to provide for many citizens, but hated to hear unionists cite its poverty as the ultimate deterrent to unification. As emigration began to reverse, hearts lifted. But as the bubble inflated and consumption became more shameless, people who describe themselves as Irish looked at the new Ireland with unease.
The rich South seemed alien. Inequality was growing, not shrinking. Realising that prosperity had also shrunk what enthusiasm remained for unification was for many nationalists only an afterthought, though galling too.
A parallel process has taken many unionists from scoffing to reluctant reassessment, and now back to something close to their original position. There was that sweetly-titled publication An Economics Lesson for Irish Nationalists and Republicans, which made nationalist teeth grind spontaneously. Produced by two minor unionist political figures in 1995 and launched with maximum effrontery in the Mansion House, it was meant to put the peace process in its place by counting brass tacks. By the time some acknowledged the Tiger’s existence the beast had fled back to the jungle.
Money famously knows no borders: the first loyalty is to enterprise and profit. There have always been unionist businessmen – though few as well-known as former minister John Taylor, Lord Kilclooney – who see no contradiction between their political stance and choices in business. Border-hopping nationalists with no hang-ups about differences between Dundalk and Newry perhaps caught the first tide, while for many unionists it was a case of sceptical Tiger-watching, doing the sums, swallowing hard and then playing the market. The same was true of Southern-based companies who saw investment beckon in the North as violence ebbed, and put their money where the opportunities were.
The South-based food industry bought up and moved in without fanfare. It is ancient history now that shop owners once pushed Kerrygold butter and Galtee bacon to the back of their shelves with one eye on loitering chaps in hefty anoraks, or substituted goods with Cookstown or Portadown on the packets after visits from the local UDA.
Property is more anonymous than groceries, though unionists noticed, and winced, when the Belfast Telegraph became part of the O’Reilly empire. Other investments went unrecognised, from mortgages to office blocks.
The McGuinness version of the total bad debt now in question, as relayed from Brian Cowen and Lenihan, is £4.8 billion (€5.4 billion), mainly in land. Who owns what in any street, anywhere? In hardline Protestant Sandy Row, ugly pickets did damage five years ago when it turned out that a new complex had become home to Southern students, among others. A line of ground-floor business premises has never found occupants since. There were presumably innocent parents who neglected to study local geography before settling in their children – but perhaps they were rash speculators.
Southern developers on the hunt, like native Northerners, found cheap land by Southern standards to build speculative apartments along the Lagan and throughout the North. The most visible evidence that they failed to make a profit, or sold on to others who failed, are the dark windows in waterside property at night.
Urban legend has it that Southern investors also bought up entire redbrick terraces of modest houses and are now part owners of Protestant heartlands. Where there were houses for sale in bulk, the districts were almost certainly Protestant. But legend
is how the story stays. Disentangling Southern investors from Northern associates will be difficult.
Unwinding the Northern ventures of the boom years is surely no easier to second guess than the final version of Nama itself, and how it will play out closer to home.