Letter: We shouldn’t adopt bad policies today just because we pursued them in the past
In his article (Legalistic attempts to ‘restore’ Article 6 of the Act of Union would be a disaster, January 29), Professor Henry Patterson seems to be arguing that because the old 1921-72 Stormont government sometimes promoted regulatory or customs differences between Northern Ireland and Great Britain we should be content if the same happens today.
This ignores the fact that in some cases these policies were very poorly conceived.
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Hide AdAs Professor Patterson notes, Northern Ireland did impose a work permits system in the 1940s to prevent people coming from Great Britain, and elsewhere, to work here.
This was a rather simplistic response to a profound unemployment problem and one which probably did long run harm to the Northern Ireland given that it restricted the potential to recruit skilled workers from Great Britain.
Just because bad policies were pursued in the past doesn’t mean we should adopt bad policies today.
We should think very carefully before we endorse the reduction in our economic integration with the rest of the United Kingdom.
Dr Esmond Birnie, Senior economist, Ulster University