John Driscoll

Engineered Healing and the Northern Ireland Question: Collaboration Across an Increasingly Invisible Border

While the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are physically united as one island, they are in effect distinct territories that remain politically, economically and socially divided. As a result of partition in 1921, and the ensuing “differences” which many would argue continue right up to present day, the counties that straddle the Irish border are today defined by their under-development and peripherality. In response to this, and the weakness of other border regions, and in recognition of the additional challenges confronting these communities (in their broadest sense), EU policy has for the past decade and a half been pointing towards the need for further research and investment into local economic development and complementary functional areas. Both intra- and inter-regional policy has become increasingly important throughout Europe as evidenced by the launch of the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and the on-going INTERREG funding program in 1986 and 1989 respectively, the later publication of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) by the European Commission in 1999 and the subsequent adoption by member states in the following five-year period of national and sub-national spatial strategies. These innovative documents were the first attempt by both governments to work collaboratively in a formal capacity on spatial planning policy – and while the commitments outlined in both constitute ‘low policy’ initiatives, it was exactly this approach that was required to encourage the new milieu of policy engagement and ensure that “face-to-face” policy development for this small island remained on the political agenda. They also played a key role in copper-fastening government support at all levels for the community-led cross-border collaborations that had been taking place, oft without political support, at the local level. The challenge since has been whether the socio-political divide that has persisted will permit a more formalized collaborative arrangement to develop or insist that the informal status quo continues.