Mixed messages not helping foreign investment – Allister

19 October 2010

Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister:-

“While all hope for maximum and lasting foreign investment, the false hype and failure of the two past US investment conferences, epitomised by the flop of the much vaunted ‘Emerald Fund’, has doubtless tempered expectations. If the Executive has learned the hard way that it takes more than sentiment and blarney to impress foreign investors, then maybe the lowered expectations of today’s venture will better insure against another disappointment.

“Quite apart from the tough world-wide economic climate, the contradiction at the heart the Executive’s pitch is not lost on hard-nosed business moguls, who quickly see through mere superficial chorography. One part of the government rightly holds out Northern Ireland as part of one of the biggest economies in the world, affording security in turbulent times, while the Sinn Fein half of government wants to detach us from that anchor and align us instead with one of the fastest sinking economies in all of Europe. This mixed message suffers further negative impact when Sinn Fein, a high taxation Marxist-orientated party, articulates its destabilising demand to transfer tax-raising powers from London to Belfast, leaving the gaping deficit ultimately to be filled by punitive taxation on those companies they seek to attract here!

“The deeper the decline into which the economy of the Republic has descended, the more the economic harmonisation structures and ethos of the Belfast Agreement arrangements are becoming a drag on Northern Ireland’s economic recovery. Increasing alignment with a busted economy is not a smart place for Northern Ireland to be.”

NI politics