NI: NORTHERN IRELAND: Costing the peace (feature)
01 September 1994
On 31 August, the IRA announced that from 1 September there would be a ceasefire: "Recognising the potential of the current situation and in order to enhance the democratic peace process and to underline our definitive commitment to its success the leadership of Oghlaigh na hEirreann have decided that as of midnight Wednesday August 31 there will be a complete cessation of military operations. All our units have been instructed accordingly".
The announcement has given rise to widespread speculation over the future governance of the North of Ireland and over the nature of any possible agreement between the Irish and British governments, and unionist and nationalist parties. While many in Ireland and internationally now believe that it is only a matter of time before the British government finally relinquishes sovereignty over the North (which it claims under the Government of Ireland Act 1920), it is doing little to prepare that ground either economically or politically. On the contrary, the British position is that the future of the North rests on a head count of British versus Irish nationalists within the six counties alone. This crude majoritarianism has renewed traditional unionist speculation over demographic trends (when will Catholics be in a majority?) and given rise to the usual repertoire of policy proposals for containing or reducing the Catholic population. The British support for what amounts to a unionist veto over any possible future arrangements is contradicted by the government's apparent commitment to the principle of Irish self- determination contained in the Downing Street declaration of 15 December 1993. It is also contradicted by the fact that British and Irish people living outside of the North of Ireland have legitimate material and political interests in the future of the six counties.
A particular focus of debate since the ceasefire has been the idea of a "peace dividend". While this has been largely discussed in terms of the economic implications of peace "new investment from the U.S. and aid from the EU" it is clear that much of the speculation focuses on the vast resources that have been committed to containing the conflict over the past twenty-five years. If the peace process continues, there are huge implications for the military, the intelligence agencies, policing, prisons, the courts and the legal profession. Furthermore, the special laws applying in British and Irish jurisdictions are under scrutiny and the civil liberties lobby has already called for the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
The scale of potential change is outlined in a recent pamphlet on "the costs of the war and the dividends of peace", published by the West Belfast Economic Forum. The pamphlet takes as its starting point a figure produced by the House of Commons research department and quoted by Tony Benn in the adjournment debate of 22 October 1993: "I asked the House of Commons research department to calculate the total cost of the emergency, and, at current prices, the cost of the war has been £14.5 billion".
The WBEF pamphlet questions this figure on a number of grounds. Firstly, the Benn figure ignores conflict-related costs falling on social services. It does not include additional health and social services costs associated with the 3,330 deaths, 35,000 injuries and mass stress of the conflict, particularly within working class communities. Excluded are the costs to the housing budget of emergency re-housing due to sectarian attacks.
Secondly, the figures are based on attributing two-thirds of the costs of prisons and the RUC to the conflict, whereas a more realistic proportion is three-quarters, taking account of the number of political prisoners and the size of a peace-time police force merited by the six county population. Excluding the war related element of Garda operations, for instance, gives a garda/population ratio of 1 to 400. On this basis the Northern six counties would need a polic