{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Holywell Trust Conversations","title":"Where is the Peace Dividend?","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2255,"description":"A few days ago the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of the House of Commons was told that for some communities here, the expected peace dividend from the Good Friday Agreement never arrived.\nTim Attwood of the John and Pat Hume Foundation reported on its recent ‘Peace Summit’. “One of the young people said, ‘The conflict was not the problem; the peace is’, because, in so many places, they do not see the dividend. Some working-class people in parts of Belfast or Derry do not see the dividend. Where are the jobs? Where is the investment that gives them the hope for the future?”\nA couple of years ago, the Derry University Group – lobbyists for university expansion in the city – published research from accountant Cormac Duffy which concluded that, in real terms, while the Belfast economy grew by 14% since the Good Friday Agreement, Derry’s economy contracted by 7%. Those figures are rejected, both by the independent FactCheckNI and by Derry City and Strabane District Council. Yet the conclusions resonated in Derry, where there is resentment and a feeling of being left behind.\nDuffy’s conclusion was based on comparing Gross Value Added in the two cities. But, as the author himself recognised, those statistics are distorted by the commuting nature of the Belfast economy, with many of the best paying jobs in the capital taken by people who live in Lisburn, Bangor and elsewhere.\nThe unemployment rate provides an alternative measure of progress. At the time of the Good Friday Agreement, the unemployment rate in the Foyle constituency was 15.2% and the male unemployment rate 20.7%. This was the 7th worst in the UK, behind Belfast West and several deprived areas of England. Today the claimant count rate in Foyle is 5.6% and 6.9% for men.\nThe UK rate in 1998 was 6.3%, today it is 3.9%. In 1998, the Foyle rate was around 9% higher than that of the UK average. Today it is 1.7% higher. So measured by official unemployment rates, Derry has gained a peace dividend.\nYet, Derry...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/PR1KfubV5mQbNCBb39558iwYKVHxNVNcf804_FJPYuQ/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzE3NTgvMTY4MDk4/NTg2MC1hcnR3b3Jr/LmpwZw.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}