Downing Street Says » Northern Ireland

» Thursday, May 8, 2008

Northern Ireland

The Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) began by giving the assembled press a flavour of the Prime Minister’s speech that he would be making later that day. The speech would be made to an audience of American investors and would be setting out in very strong terms, the case for them to invest in Northern Ireland.

The Prime Minister would say that Northern Ireland was open, flexible, a hub for skills and innovation and a great place to invest. One specific announcement the Prime Minister would be making would be in relation to the amount of assets sales that the Northern Ireland Executive could retain for reinvestment in Northern Ireland. In the PMS’s words, the Prime Minister would say that we would allow over the next three years the Northern Ireland Executive to retain 100% of the proceeds from sales of public sector assets, up to a new limit of £2.2billion. That was a doubling of the existing figure and an unprecedented deal for Northern Ireland.

Asked if that included Stormont Castle, the PMS said he did not think anyone was suggesting that, but it covered public sector surplus land and other assets.

Put that the DUP were looking for greater flexibility in the economy and now that was guaranteed, they would support the Prime Minister over the issue of 42 days detention, the PMS said that this announcement was about increasing investment and infrastructure in Northern Ireland and enhancing the attractiveness of Northern Ireland as a place to invest, which was what the conference was all about.

Asked why the figure was £2.2billion, the PMS replied that that was an approximate doubling of the existing figure and was over the next three years. Put that there had been a process a year or two ago where buildings were being sold off, the PMS advised people to check with the Northern Ireland office and the Treasury on the specifics of that.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

May 2008

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

« Apr

Jun »

» Thursday, May 8, 2008

Northern Ireland

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries