State pledges €580m for North Executive package

THE Republic will contribute €580 million to a €1.47 billion financial package announced for the Northern Ireland Executive yesterday.

The package has been described as a “major boost for the entire island of Ireland” by Finance Minister Brian Cowen. The new package comes on top of €51bn (£35bn) already pledged to the Executive over the next four years.

British Chancellor Gordon Brown said the extra money will enable power-sharing ministers to tackle water charges and other infrastructural problems.

The €580m Irish funding was provided to cover a major new roads programme, which will provide dual carriageway standards on routes within Northern Ireland.

The north west gateway initiative, launched by the two governments in 2005, is the main beneficiary of the State funding.

This will see the Dublin to Letterkenny/Derry A5 route via Aughnacloy, Omagh and Strabane upgraded to dual carriageway by 2013, while the eastern seaboard corridor from Belfast to Larne will also be upgraded.

Yesterday, Mr Cowen said the financial package represented a real opportunity for economic progress to accompany political stability in Northern Ireland.

“The agreement to develop a dual carriageway standard road to Derry and Donegal removes the single greatest impediment to the future development of the northwest and the Border counties,” he said. “It will be the biggest and most important cross-Border project ever on this island.”

Speaking after a meeting with Northern Ireland party leaders yesterday, the British chancellor said that a retail consortium agreement would provide up to 5,000 new jobs for the province in the coming years.

David Vamey, the former head of the Inland Revenue, is charged with carrying out a review of the differing tax rates between the Republic and Northern Ireland.

Deputy leader of the DUP, Peter Robinson, said that the possibility of a further reduction in corporation tax remained.

He claimed that the link between Northern Ireland local taxation and money borrowed from the British treasury had also been broken.

“But the programme of work for an executive is immense, particularly in terms of the infrastructural deficit that has to be dealt with,” the East Belfast MP said. However, he added: “I suspect that there will be more visits to No 11 before we have a package everybody will be reasonably content with.”

Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Hain, yesterday indicated that the British Government might be prepared to consider DUP proposals to allow a new administration time to bed-in — in the form of an eight-week gap between its first and second meetings.

However, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, insisted that Monday’s deadline to form an executive remains in place.