Sir, - Sean MacCarthaigh's summary of the Cooper and Lybrand report on the Northern Ireland economy (January 23rd) stated that "growth had spiralled slowly downwards". He also described the Northern Ireland public sector as "elephantine" and stated that the annual subsidy had risen to over £3.2 billion.
This lurid interpretation of the Cooper and Lybrand report was almost wholly misleading. If growth in Northern Ireland is spiralling anywhere, it is spiralling upwards. The latest official figures for GDP in Northern Ireland were for 1994, when growth was 4.5 per cent. Figures for 1995 will be published next month and are expected to be around 2.5 per cent. The Northern Ireland Economic Research Centre's forecast for 1997 is 3.5 per cent. In each of these years, growth was, or is forecast to be, more favourable than in the rest of the UK.
Other indicators also show that the Northern Ireland economy is performing well. Employment has risen by 20,000 since 1994 and the unemployment rate, at 9.6 per cent, is at its lowest for 16 years.
While the public sector is large by UK standards, it is becoming steadily smaller, due both to privatisation and UK wide reduction in public expenditure. It is large, partly because of high security costs, but more importantly because of the large scale needs for public services and subsidies generated by a young population which grows much more rapidly than elsewhere in the UK.
Half of the cost of public expenditure is borne by UK taxpayers outside Northern Ireland, but this proportion is slowing falling. While I would be the last to suggest that all public expenditure is essential, in the majority of cases standards of public expenditure in Northern Ireland are close to those prevailing throughout the UK. These standards are generally higher than in the Republic of Ireland, but unless one takes the view that public service provision should be reduced to levels below the UK average, the pejorative term "elephantine" has no meaning. - Yours, etc.,
Director, NIERC,
46-48 University Road,
Belfast BT7 INJ.
