Gerry Adams' recent appeal for the IRA to embrace purely political activity is a formula that could lead to peace, one of North America's most powerful elected politicians has declared.
Alan Hevesi also stated that the Democratic Unionist Party would need to respond positively if the IRA moves into a new "status" in coming months. Mr Hevesi is the Comptroller of New York State and is sole trustee of the second largest pension fund in North America, currently standing at $120 billion.
He is a longtime campaigner against discrimination in the North and has championed the Mac Bride Principles for fair employment. Last night the prominent New Yorker flatly rejected anyone attempting to label his involvement with the Mac Bride Principles as "baggage".
At a press conference in Belfast yesterday, Mr Hevesi announced his office's first ever direct investment in the North, totalling almost £4 million.
Speaking exclusively to the Andersonstown News Group, Mr Hevesi said that the new investment is a sign of his "cautious optimism" for the peace process.
"What is interesting about the request by Gerry Adams for the IRA to consider changing their status is that there is a formula that, if pursued, can lead to peace," Mr Hevesi said.
"Should the IRA positively respond, then the DUP as the majority party in the unionist community, would need to respond. They could respond positively and, one hopes, would then help to organise a multi-party set of institutions to help implement the Good Friday Agreement," Mr Hevesi said. Ending paramilitary activity and ensuring co-operation between the North's political parties would be in the best interests of all citizens, Mr Hevesi added.
"It would send an enormously positive message to the international investing community."
However, despite a sense of optimism, Mr Hevesi also pointed out that significant work remains to be completed in terms of eradicating inequality and unfairness in the North. He described Monday's revelations in our sister paper, Daily Ireland, showing that Catholics remain two times more likely than Protestants to be unemployed, as "troubling" and "very, very telling".
"There is a huge additional problem of deprived and disadvantaged communities – both Catholic and Protestant – that have been locked out [of economic growth] and the disparity between the haves and the have-nots is growing dramatically.
"It requires the government, or any future government structure, to focus in a very positive and affirmative way, otherwise the progress can be stalled, delayed and maybe destroyed.
"You cannot pay lip service to issues of fairness and equality and justice. You have to affirmatively pursue them in a number of strategic ways and its not enough to say 'there is a law that prohibits discrimination, so everything's fine'."
Speaking directly about those elements of government in the North which have systematically frustrated the equality agenda set out in the Good Friday Agreement, Mr Hevesi added: "The attitude of some in the administration and the bureaucracy has to be changed. No-one is above the law. The laws were passed for a purpose and the purpose requires affirmative action."
Mr Hevesi also rejected any suggestion that his promotion of the Mac Bride Principles is a burden when intervening in Ireland.
"Mac Bride is not baggage. The Mac Bride Principles, in a vacuum, are simple principles of fairness in employment and non-discrimination that people who are not historically angry would see as minimalist bottom-line principles that ought to be reflected in every society.
"It was a major success that the debate over fair employment and fairness moved to the stage of implementation. The disagreements [now] are over how to do this effectively, even though some saw this as an opportunity not to implement the law.
"No-one can argue against fairness and equality and no-one should, so I don't see that as baggage.
"Our investment is a recognition that, on a number of fronts, things have improved. We also recognise that there are huge problems to be resolved and that the issues of equality and fairness have not yet been resolved," he said.
Urging all political parties in the North to "sacrifice some of their own long-term agenda in order to make peace", Mr Hevesi said that investment, jobs and prosperity could copperfasten the permanence of the peace process.
American models for achieving social justice and workplace reform through contract compliance policies could be used to tackle inequality in the North, Alan Hevesi told an audience in Belfast on Tuesday.
Speaking to a top-level seminar organised by the non-governmental Equality Coalition pressure group, Mr Hevesi said that equality laws which apply to general employment should also apply to government contracting and public procurement. He told a range of political, governmental, cultural, economic and human rights figures that significant pressure can be brought to bear on individual companies and wider social practices through contract compliance and commercial clout.
"Putting into law some basic principles is big stuff. Implementing them through the relevant government agencies is important. Failing to implement them in the contracting process is a terrible failure," Mr Hevesi said.
"In fact, by design, if you are resistant to enforcing these legal strictures ... and you know by law you have to implement them as a government agency, and you avoid the problem by contracting with private business, that's just a way to skirt the responsibility or to stall the end result.
"The rules have to apply to contracting as well. If they're fair rules, they have to apply to contracting," Mr Hevesi said.
Inez McCormack, former President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said Mr Hevesi's consistent interventions have demonstrated that "asking for change and challenging unfairness was something that was normal and healthy, not unhealthy and subversive".
"I believe that society will have truly changed when the same manners and respect are given to someone from a deprived area when they ask the questions, that are given to Alan when he comes here.
"What he has done in Northern Ireland is his enormous smart ability to turn your moral conviction into a business case which is unassailable for those who do not believe in either moral purpose or social practice.
"He has managed to show that to make social change is actually good business," Ms McCormack said.
The lifelong equality activist also told the seminar that campaigners in the North will be looking for Mr Hevesi to intensively continue his advocacy for change in coming years, and hope others follow his lead.
Adams welcomes investment
North America's second-largest pension fund this week announced an investment of £3.75 million in the North to assist fledgling technology businesses.
The New York State Common Retirement Fund, which adminsters $120 billion, has teamed up with the North's two universities to establish the £22.5 million Crescent Capital II venture fund.
The purpose of Crescent Capital II is to help technology companies gain vital development assistance at an early stage. It will particularly target companies that emerge from Queen's University and the University of Ulster.
Making the announcement, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi said that the North currently provides "tremendous opportunities for growth and prosperity, regardles of religious, political or any other affiliation".
Welcoming the investment announcement, Sinn Féin president and West Belfast MP Gerry Adams described Mr Hevesi's involvement in the North over recent decades as being "very consistent in the movement towards equality and towards justice".
Mr Adams also welcomed the long-term nature of Mr Hevesi's investment announcement.
"I think it is important that this is long-term. When a society is in transition, those who are best qualified will be most able to take advantage of upward trends and what happens then, because that is the case, is that the gap widens. In an ironic way, a peace process can actually disadvantage some people," Mr Adams said.
The Sinn Féin president pointed out that while the institutionalised structures of state discrimination in the North still need to be reversed, working-class social deprivation throughout areas such as the Shankill and Falls Roads must be tackled through such investments.
