Citi Defies N. Ireland Political Stasis as Biden Touts Spending

Stephen Carroll and Ellen Milligan
·3 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Businesses in Northern Ireland said they’re pushing ahead with investments, despite a stalemate that’s paralyzed the region’s political institutions for the past 15 months.

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Sentiment has been boosted by US President Joe Biden’s pledge in Belfast last month that “scores of major American corporations” want to plow money into Northern Ireland. But his appeal for the restoration of the region’s power-sharing government went unheeded as the Democratic Unionist Party, which has blocked formation of the executive since February 2022, stuck to its demands for further changes to the UK’s Brexit deal with the European Union before it will co-operate.

“It is not a constraint for our business growth if the executive doesn’t sit,” Leigh Meyer, Citigroup Inc.’s lead in Belfast, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview. His view was backed by Joe O’Neill, CEO of Belfast Harbour, who told Bloomberg the political freeze “hasn’t stopped” his company “pushing ahead with our investment plans.”

The views of the business figures illustrate the sea-change in sentiment in Northern Ireland in the 25 years since a peace agreement largely put an end to decades of sectarian violence. Biden on his visit said that the region’s economic output had doubled in that quarter-century helped by $2 billion generated by American business in the past decade. And he predicted that “if things continue to move in the right direction, it will more than triple.”

Biden’s special envoy for Northern Ireland, Joe Kennedy, has pointed to the more than 230 American firms employing over 30,000 people in the region already, with the cyber-security industry particularly looking to expand there. The US is preparing a trade delegation of companies to visit Northern Ireland later this year.

O’Neill at Belfast Harbour cautioned that the political support from Biden and the EU needs to be translated into “policy and opportunity.” He said he sees interest from technology and food firms, including biomedical and manufacturing companies.

Kennedy signaled an end to the political stasis would bring an even bigger boost. Some sectors are more resilient to political instability than others, he told reporters last month. “Having government up and running — the stability and clarity that provides — will certainly help make” the case for investment, he said.

Biden himself said that “peace and economic opportunity go together.”

The DUP argues the post-Brexit trading rules weaken Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, even after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak brokered changes to the original deal that are now enshrined in a new agreement called the Windsor Framework. They’ve continued to refuse to join a power-sharing government, meaning that a year on from the last election in the region, and weeks before local elections, the region lacks a sitting executive — as it has done for about 40% of its lifespan.

“We would like that to change. We would like to have a sitting executive, we are very engaged when they are sitting because we discuss the development and the initiatives that we’re working on,” Citi’s Meyer said.

That chimes with O’Neill’s view. “Political stability goes to the heart of most foreign direct investment decisions,” he said. “I think we can’t hide that if we were able to signpost an offer, that reassurance to foreign direct investors, that there is a sitting Assembly, that is clearly beneficial.”

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