North’s East-West divide

By Goretti Horgan

A recent report from PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC) on the East-West divide in the North of Ireland confirmed that people in the North West have not benefited from the economic growth of the last 10 to 15 years. And now statistics show that the West is being hardest hit by job losses in the recession.

The PWC report indicates that Gross Value Added (GVA, a measure of wealth creation) in the North West is just 82% of GVA in the North generally and this, in turn, is just 80% of the UK ’s GVA.

The report found that young people in the area get good examination results – often above the UK average – but then have to leave the area to find work. This then means that the educational qualifications of those remaining are below average for Northern Ireland.

Both the population and number of jobs in the North West grew between 1995 and 2005 but the increase in population was greater than the growth in jobs, which means that even more people have been left without the hope of getting a job.

While the report received a lot of publicity for showing how bad things are in the North West, it does not go into more social issues such as the provision of childcare or care for people with disabilities. In fact, the figures in relation to these measures are every bit as bad. So, for example, the report, “Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion in NI”, showed that western areas have less than half the number of nursery and child-minder places per 1,000 children under 5 years as eastern areas.

Surprisingly, for an outfit like PWC, which usually attacks public sector workers, the report concludes that the West needs the provision of more public sector jobs; that the University at Magee needs to be expanded; and that high-speed transport links should be put in place between Belfast and Derry. People in Derry won’t be holding their breath!