Debate contribution: Regional Balance Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 8 September 2026.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

8 September 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Regional Balance Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5674611

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I congratulate the Member on bringing forward a Bill. It can be a long and painful process, and I wish her well. Unfortunately, I have not been as successful in getting a private Member’s Bill through in this mandate, but I wish the Member well. Our party has said for a long time that Derry, Strabane and the north-west more generally have been neglected and left behind. The Member referred to the poverty statistics for Derry, and we should categorically abolish poverty in Foyle, Derry, Strabane, Coleraine, the north-west and, indeed, right across the North and Ireland. It is also worth mentioning that poverty and inequality exist in other areas. Members have accepted that, although it does not negate the experience of poverty and deprivation in the north-west. I note that the three areas with the lowest life expectancy are, not unpredictably, west Belfast, north Belfast and Derry. That is not an accident, and I will come on to that a bit later. Too often, Belfast can be treated as a homogeneous block. I do not say that because I am from the area, but it does not often present a true picture of what is going on. When we talk about actual deprivation and inequality in the South, some people will say that Dublin gets all the investment. Obviously, there is huge investment in Dublin, but there is also huge poverty in major metropolitan cities.

Members have talked about the inequality and deprivation in Derry, which is real, but I did not hear any mention of the fact that the richest person in the North, Philip O'Doherty, is from Derry. I presume that he still lives in Derry, but he is from that area. We need to talk about the fact that we have billionaires and wealth in this society. We need to talk about making billionaires history and taxing them out of existence. The question is how we tackle that wealth inequality and recognise that just because people come from the same area or constituency does not mean that their life experiences or interests are same. Billionaires do not have the same interests at heart as people who are working or people who are unemployed, whether they are from Belfast, Derry, Dublin or London. I would be keen to hear, in a general sense, whether the Member considered including in the Bill measures to tackle wealth inequality. Partition was mentioned as being one of the main reasons why the north-west and elsewhere are deprived and neglected. I think that that is true. There is no disagreement on that point. We had a situation of uneven and combined development in the North of Ireland, the north-west and Ireland, largely as a product of the colonial relationship with England and overindustrialisation to serve the interests of empire and not the interests of working-class people. Places like Derry and west Belfast were purposefully underfunded, because those communities were treated with suspicion or seen as troublemakers. Therefore, the regional inequality is by design. Generally, the North was designed as a map of sectarian division and class exclusion. Our cities and towns were designed with a sectarian logic. That is not an accident, which is in part why they are deprived and unequal, as well as dividing working-class people generally. I argue that regional gaps exist, not because of a lack of framework or policy or even ambition but because of the calculated results of sectarianism and imperialism. I do not want to be dismissive — a framework is all well and good — but, generally, we have too many strategies and frameworks. My concern is that, if they are not implemented, nothing is done with them. That is not to be flippant towards the Bill sponsor, and other Members have made that point more generally. I also firmly believe that it is not only a mistake but a politically unsound economic approach to be fixated with using FDI or international capital to save the day. Wealth does not trickle down. Not only is it a question of jobs and sectors being engaged in the war industry — some parties welcomed the likes of Raytheon when it came to Derry because they were just concerned about jobs — but we have to recognise the role played by those companies when they pull out of areas. Former industrial heartlands, mostly in parts of Antrim and other areas, the majority of which were primarily Protestant working-class areas, were massively impacted on by job losses because big international capital decided to pull out of them. We saw job losses in places like Antrim and Ballymena, effectively creating a rust belt in those areas. The market of capitalism is ruthless and does not care which community it leaves to go to rack and ruin in the pursuit of profit. You cannot wait your whole life for international capital to lift people out of poverty or, in my view, to tackle regional inequality. We saw the closure in the past few years of Japan Tobacco in Ballymena, and job losses at the Michelin plant, Wrightbus and Caterpillar, along with the closure of Caterpillar's Monkstown plant. It is a risky strategy. Those international corporations do not have the interests of working-class people at heart. On regional inequality, we should recognise that the North as a whole has been neglected by the British Government for decades, and the UK is one of the most regionally unequal countries in Europe. The North is obviously on the extreme periphery of that. We need to see an assault on wealth inequality across the islands if we are going to abolish poverty. We argue that any internal disparities that exist between Derry and Belfast, or east and west, are subdivisions of a broader structural neglect that has been shaped by class and reinforced by partition. British capital extracted what it could from the North, leaving the contradictions to fester and the people to fight among themselves, which they still do to this day.

I want to mention briefly, as other Members did, the total neglect of Donegal, which is a railway desert. Billions of euros have been put into the M50 and Luas in the South — obviously, they are important projects — but Donegal remains the largest region in Europe without a single kilometre of operational track. That is a disgrace and an absolute outrage. Unionism has been rightly criticised about neglect and regional inequality and the part that it has played in that since the foundation of the state. It is guilty as charged. The question that we have to ask, however, is this: what have nationalist Ministers from Derry and the north-west done to challenge regional inequality? They have not done anywhere near enough. That is not because of personal failure or because people are not interested but because we cannot challenge or address regional inequality through the straitjacket of this institution. I want to ask the Member a few questions on the Bill and would appreciate her getting back to me. Clause 1(3)(f) mentions:

"measurable targets ... for reducing regional disparities".

From my reading of the Bill, there is no penalty or punishment in place for Ministers who fail to provide those targets. Did the Member consider that? Was that part of the consultation process? If it was, I would like to hear more about that and why it was not adopted in the Bill. If not, would she be open to amendments in that regard? Clause 6, "Guidance and research", states that "The Department may" — I have written "x, y and z" but it is 1, 2 and 3, is it not? No, it is a, b and c. Why did the Member not use the word "must" rather than "may"? That is a bit of a technical issue. However, "must" obviously compels Departments to do things, rather than just suggesting that they do.

1,316 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:20 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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