As politicians from both
sides of the border hit
Washington this week
for St Patrick's Day,
they'll find their Capitol
Hill hosts feuding over competing
budget-slashing schemes –
including one that would cancel
all US financial support for the International
Fund for Ireland.
The demise of America's annual
IFI contribution – $17m last
year – isn't exactly a bolt out of
the blue. The British and Irish
governments had earlier floated
the idea of a winding-up by 2010.
But the still-gaping economic
wounds that the recession inflicted
on Northern Ireland and the
Republic have caused a rethink
about that timetable – and the
need for Uncle Sam's yearly cash
infusion.
Having forked out $486m to
the IFI since the British and Irish
governments established it in
1986, the US has been the biggest
donor to the fund (whose other
underwriters include the European
Union, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand).
Roughly 20% of America's cash
– some $100m – was disbursed
during the first four years of Bill
Clinton's presidency, between 1993
and 1997.
Jim Lyons, who served as Clinton's
IFI observer for eight years
and donned the cap of special US
economic envoy to Northern Ireland
and the Republic between
1997 and 2000, said that the fund
was pivotal to advancing the
peace.
"We created well over 22,000
permanent jobs by funding somewhere
around 4,000 projects. We
had an enormous impact on the
ground," the Denver-based lawyer
told the Belfast Telegraph.
Lyons said a key strength of
the IFI was that its seed-funding
helped "leverage" further contributions
for specific projects from
private-sector investors and other
governments.
"During those eight years, we
leveraged well over a billion-anda-
half dollars of investment in the
12 counties – the six counties of
Northern Ireland and the six border
counties in the Republic," he
said.
Lyons was so impressed with
the IFI's impact that, upon leaving
his posts, he urged the State Department
to consider it as "a
model that the United States could
use in other trouble spots around
the world – whether that was
Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda, you pick
it."
He said that America's IFI funding
was never meant to be permanent.
But, given the recession's
ongoing aftershocks, he said that
now isn't the time for US support
to end.
"Frankly, it's not very much
money to the United States in the
grand scheme of things," he said.
Unfortunately for Northern Ireland
and the Republic's border
counties, Jim Lyons won't be making
the IFI funding call.
Even though they only control
the House of Representatives,
budget-obsessed Republicans are
in the drivers' seat in Washington
– and they've forced the Senate-controlling
Democrats and President
Obama to sharpen their
budget-slashing axes, too.
As such, with dozens of domestic
programs – ranging from
health and education to environmental
and food-safety oversight
– facing drastic cuts, it's no surprise
that IFI funding is at risk.
In the eyes of most Americans,
the majority of whom pay little attention
to events the island of Ireland,
the peace process is done
and dusted. So why spend money
to foster peace when peace has already
been achieved?
