 |
| David McCann on the Stephen Nolan Show |
David McCann (@dmcbfs) is a researcher, academic and writer for Slugger O'Toole and The Journal.ie, below he has written a guest post and laid out a big challenge on the economy for people on both sides in Northern Ireland.
There are some realities in Northern Ireland that seem to remain constant. We have bitterness and mistrust among sections of the two main communities and sense of political paralysis in Stormont. But another reality which is in fact more like a nightmare is our sluggish economy which contrary to protestations of some of our political parties is not performing as well as they would argue it is.
Northern Ireland theoretically does have a relatively low level of unemployment at around 7 per cent. However these figures hide two things, 1) the very high level of people employed in the public sector (31 per cent) and 2) the staggering levels of youth unemployment which some estimates have at being above 20 per cent.
Time to leave the country I hear you say? Well with these figures I wouldn’t blame you but to borrow the old Charles Haughey mantra of ‘come to my table with solutions’ I aim to give some positive suggestions for Northern Ireland to emerge from this dark malaise.
