16 July 2007
The PM travelled to Northern Ireland for the first time since becoming Prime Minister to meet with the Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the leaders of the devolved UK governments.
Read the transcript
Prime Minister:
Can I say first of all what a pleasure it is to be here in Belfast with the Taoiseach for this meeting of the British-Irish Council. It is a particular pleasure for me in my first few weeks as Prime Minister to come here to Belfast and to have this meeting of the British-Irish Council so soon after the restoration of devolution here in Northern Ireland. And both the Taoiseach and I are looking forward to meeting Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness in the next few minutes to talk about the common and shared issues that unite us and issues that we must deal with together.
I am particularly pleased at the success of the restoration of devolution. I am particularly pleased at the cooperation between the British and Irish Governments that have made it possible. I believe that we have entered into a new historic time for Northern Ireland and I want to work with all politicians here to make a success of the new devolution arrangements.
The Taoiseach and I have had a meeting this morning. We have discussed the European constitution and how that can move forward over the next few months. We have discussed the relationships between our two countries and how we can build a stronger economic cooperation. We have also discussed the problems of security and terrorism in light of the events in Britain, particularly in London and Glasgow over the last few weeks. We discussed the need for greater cooperation on security matters in the years to come. Both of us accept that there is a need for greater cooperation across Europe, greater cooperation in the sharing of information, the sharing of information about biometric visas for those countries that are part of the Schengen Agreement with us, and the sharing of information about alerts about people who are known to be suspicious, suspected of terrorist activities. We want to see that sharing of information extend not just across the other 25 countries of the European union, but extend to us in Britain and Ireland as well. And we of course are prepared to share information about biometric visa information with other countries. We hope we can have reciprocal information shared in the future.
That points to greater cooperation that is going to be needed across Europe in dealing with the problems of security and terrorism. I hope that other countries will join Ireland and Britain in making that possible as we deal with what is clearly a terrorist threat that has affected the United Kingdom recently, but could affect any country in Europe, indeed any continent in the world.
I look forward to the meeting of the Council in the next few minutes. Thank you all for being here today.
Taoiseach:
Thank you very much Prime Minister. May I first of all say it is a great pleasure for me to be here and to meet Prime Minister Gordon Brown. We have had a very good and important first meeting between us in our capacities and I want to thank you very much for that.
Today is another important day in the working of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. The British-Irish Council is a meeting I have always enjoyed, I have always attended, I have always participated in it. It is very important that both Dr Paisley, Martin McGuinness, that we can work with them and work through the agenda today. We are talking about important issues: the ongoing progress on drugs and the transport issues, and these are ones that my government are very anxious to cooperate with with our colleagues in the Northern Ireland Executive. And like the Prime Minister I acknowledge the excellent work that has gone on here for the last few months with the institutions. I think today is another step in the right direction.
We have had a chance of discussing some of the issues between us, obviously dealing with the reform treaty of the European Union. We look forward to working closely with you, Prime Minister, on the European agenda and other issues that are important to us between Ireland and Britain. The issue we have been talking about this morning obviously from the events of terrorism, security issues, how we can cooperate, the information that is gathered outside of Schengen that is not available to us. I think we can cooperate and release information and trying to jointly have access to that information that is I understand comprehensively gathered, but we don’t see it, or it is outside Interpol, it is outside of the normal security issues.
I think that today, with our colleagues in the Council, it is an opportunity for us to move on the agenda. In all of the difficulties we have had with the institutions, the British-Irish Council continued to work. It was the one institution that worked. I acknowledge all of the work that has taken place over literally hundreds of meetings of the Council in the last few years. Hopefully now, in the political sense, the two governments can move on with this work in the period ahead.
Question:
[Indistinct] can you give an indicative date for the financial package? [Indistinct] You have spoken much but delivered little today.
Prime Minister:
Well the financial package is very big indeed. It is £51.5 billions over the next few years. It is to make possible the current expenditures of the Northern Ireland Assembly and to make possible a big programme of investment in the future. And of course the full amounts will be confirmed when we announce as a government our public spending settlements in the autumn. But it is already a figure of £51.5 billions and I believe it makes possible the immediate investments that are necessary in reconstruction here> It makes possible the seeking out of new investment from right across the world in Northern Ireland, and we look forward to an investment conference for Northern Ireland. And of course it has made possible some of the decisions that have already been made on water rates and other things here in Northern Ireland. But the full package is as it stands £51.5 billions.
Question:
Prime Minister, Taoiseach, is it not necessary though, corporation tax in the Republic of Ireland is much lower than here in Northern Ireland, is that not unfair and is not time for your Government to do something about it?
Prime Minister:
As you know, we have set up a review into this. David Varney, former head of the Inland Revenue is looking at these matters, he has consulted all the parties here. He is not just looking at what happens here, he is looking around Europe at the different tax systems, and of course he is looking at the system that operates in the Republic for Corporation Tax. When a company is looking at whether it invests in this area, it is looking at a number of things. Most companies will pay very low effective tax rates, far lower than the published tax rate as a result of investment incentives. We have increased the number of investment incentives available for companies coming to Northern Ireland. At the same time we are creating a new innovation fund that will encourage companies in the high technology area to invest here with particular support. And we are building a lot of new investment facilities around the universities and around high technology research for the future. So the overall package for investment in Northern Ireland is what we are looking at. I think you will find that it is very competitive with the Republic and with other areas of Europe. I think you will find that, when David Varney reports, we are able to present a very good picture of what is possible in Northern Ireland in the years to come to attract more and more companies from outside Northern Ireland to here. The investment conference that is being planned by the Executive will be a signal to companies from all over the world that Northern Ireland is a place to invest in, that there is a great future here, there is great infrastructure being built here, there are new skills being developed here and there are new investment incentives for Northern Ireland.
Question:
Taoiseach, Prime Minister, you had your first face to face meeting today since Mr Brown took over at No 10. What is going to provide the dynamic for your relationship?
Taoiseach:
Well I think the important thing for us now is to take the institutions on. We have had all of the difficulties about suspension over many years; hopefully this week we will see all of the institutions up and running with their own agendas. All that we want to do is work very closely with the Executive and make sure that the work programme that we have set out - and that they have set out in their own programme -that we can try and help to implement that. And like the last question on the investment issue our role in this will be to help broaden out the industrial and investment cooperation that we can have. We can do this, I think, in a very friendly way. We all have contacts around the world where we can try and work to bring more investment into Northern Ireland, more employment to Northern Ireland, deal with the people who felt socially excluded. We can do that working very much together and in cooperation. And I think success for us now is to make sure that the institutions, having got them up and running, can continue to function and run Northern Ireland as there was on the east-west basis, north-south basis. We look forward to doing that and I think today is a very important part of that.
Question:
Prime Minister, how significant is your presence here today? Is it a sign that you intend an increased role for the British-Irish Council in the years to come?
Prime Minister:
Well I think that the British-Irish Council is very important. As Bertie Ahern has just said, it is a great forum for people to meet to discuss common concerns. I am here with Shaun Woodward, our new Northern Ireland Secretary, to show that we mean business for the future in making this work. I am also very pleased of course to meet Dr Paisley and Martin McGuinness this morning to talk about some of the issues that they are going to raise with us. And I may say it has been a delight to meet Bertie Ahern this morning. He was one of the great architects of the Good Friday Agreement. He is held in great esteem in the United Kingdom. He came to meet the British Parliament only a few weeks ago and gave an historic speech to the British Parliament, which was commended by everybody who was there to listen to it. As a friend of many years standing I look forward to working with him in the future for what is a common cause, for what are shared ideals and for what are purposes that I think can bring both peace and prosperity here and of course to other parts of the continent of Europe.
Question:
Prime Minister, [indistinct] the meeting with Alex Salmond?
Prime Minister:
We will be meeting Alex Salmond and we will be meeting with the representatives of the Welsh Assembly, and of course other representative organisations from round the United Kingdom and those that are part of the British-Irish Council. I look forward to working with Mr Salmond for the common purpose of bringing prosperity to Scotland.
Question:
Prime Minister, today you are discussing issues like transportation and cross-border security. On the transportation issues, when will we see things like penalty points applied on both sides of the border? And on the security issue, there are big challenges there, given we saw our coastline being used for a massive cocaine importation operation in recent weeks, so is that the kind of work you will be looking at?
Taoiseach:
Well first of all under transport, I think all over Europe transport is a crucial ingredient to making economic success. The less transport difficulties, the less congestion, the easier movement for goods and services the more efficient an economy is. I think we both know that. So transport is a crucial and important issue for the economic drive of the whole island and for Britain and for Northern Ireland, for the Republic of Ireland, so I think it is a good area where we can cooperate. And anything we can do about harmonising rules and regulations that make that more efficient, all the better.
On the drugs issue, one of the great successes of the Council in the last number of years has been the work done on drugs. As you rightly said coastlines and borders are continually being used and we have got the huge haul in the Cork region recently. In Europe generally more effort has to be put into trying to make sure that the coastline is policed as best it can be to stop this. But we have a really good programme, which is in the report today, of what we have done on drugs cooperation. It is an area where it is in everybody’s interest that the fight against crime, the fight against drugs, the fight against organised criminals who make vast sums of money out of it. If we can help in the Council do that, cooperating and initiatives that the British government have, that the Executive have, that we have, then we can make a big impact.
Prime Minister:
I am delighted that the UK and Irish Governments will now approach the European Union for better systems of data sharing so that we can deal with potential threats, whether it is criminal conspiracies or terrorist conspiracies, that we can work together by sharing data with our other European colleagues in a way that we have not done before. And I think that the public will want all the different authorities in Europe to work together so that information about immigration, information about biometrics related to known or potential terrorist suspects, that that information is now shared between all 27 authorities in Europe, as a result of a better system of policing.
Question:
Inaudible.
Prime Minister:
[Political content] Of course we want to work together with all parts of the United Kingdom for the common prosperity of the United Kingdom, and one of the purposes of this summit is not only of course to talk about the interests of the United Kingdom, but to work with Ireland, to work with all participants in this summit because we have a common cause in ensuring both prosperity and justice for all the citizens represented here.
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