Madam, - I welcome Dr Garret FitzGerald's timely article on the need to reverse the decline in the Northern Ireland economy (Opinion, April 30th).
Where I part company with him is in his singling out of David Trimble's failure to persuade the British government during the 1998 peace negotiations to seek EU approval for the low Irish corporate tax rate to be applied in Northern Ireland. The same charge could be levelled at almost all the other political leaders in the negotiations.
What is not generally known is that during the peace negotiations the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, invited the participating political parties to give him their proposals on Northern Ireland's fiscal arrangements. Alone among the participating parties, Labour Northern Ireland, which I led during the peace talks, submitted detailed, costed proposals, which included the introduction of the low corporate tax rate following consultations with Northern Ireland business and trade union leaders.
If our proposals had been accepted by the British government, it is highly unlikely that Northern Ireland would now be in such an unholy political and economic mess.
British ministers rejected our proposals on the grounds that granting a low corporate tax rate to Northern Ireland would set a precedent that could lead to similar demands from other regions within the UK - despite the fact that Northern Ireland has the highest level of social deprivation and relative poverty not only in Britain and Ireland but most likely in the whole of Western Europe. Today more than 185,000 households in Northern Ireland are poor. Over half-a-million people - one third of the population - live in poverty.
What is required to correct the decline in the Northern Ireland economy is an effective EU regional development policy which would permit as a matter of right the adoption of a low corporate tax level in Northern Ireland to help attract inward investment. - Yours, etc,
MALACHI CURRAN,
Leader, Labour Party
of Northern Ireland,
Killough,
Co Down.