Strategy development to begin next year

Work on developing a programme for government in the North will begin in the new year and is expected to be completed during the summer, the Minister of Finance and Personnel, Mr Mark Durkan, said yesterday.

This will be agreed following negotiations between all the parties in the Assembly at Executive and committee level, he said.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Mr Durkan said the Budget was unchanged from the plan inherited from the North's civil service at devolution. This was because the parties had been focusing on setting up the institutions of the new administration in the North.

He added that to have gratuitously engaged in "superficial allocations" would be "an indulgence tantamount to political joyriding".

The North-South structures now being set up under the Belfast Agreement offered opportunities for further growth, he said. "In term of cross-Border trade there is huge room to grow and therefore we should be identifying that as a real opportunity.

"After all, if we're talking about making ourselves ever more competitive, then we shouldn't balk at the prospect of a single-island economy increasingly in different sectors. In something like the energy sector it's probably better that we move in that direction earlier rather than later."

Asked about higher corporation tax rates north of the Border, which are perceived as making the Republic more attractive to foreign investors, Mr Durkan said that it was "an issue".

He added that corporation tax was not the sole consideration of investors. "The fact is, if that was the only thing, then there would be no inward investment in the North. There would be no significant investment, yielding significant employment."