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Showing posts from February, 2016

When the game is not straight

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As a society we promote growing our economy as our priority. Such a policy represents clear political thinking that a growing economy will improve the quality of life of all our citizens. To ensure this our government must manage expectations and investments to ensure that all our citizens have an equal opportunity to benefit. In Northern Ireland we continue to struggle with the concept of ensuring a return on the investment we make or indeed recognising the value of the investment that others make. Investing in health, education, further and higher education represent areas where we know the cost of everything and the value of very little. Occasionally we have the opportunity for others to invest in us, in Northern Ireland. We ask them to come here, to invest money on the basis that, rightly, all things being equal they will receive a return on that investment and we too will benefit, through employment, taxation or services. Sometimes it works. Sometimes we get it wrong,