Derry and Strabane reps demand meeting with Invest NI

A proposal from Chair, councillor John McGowan, which passed unanimously, called for the interim CEO, members of the board and the Permanent Secretary to meet with council to explain how they plan to address the imbalance that exists between the Belfast region and the council area and greater North West.

Referring to the report, Councillor McGowan said: “I don’t think it is any surprise to members in this chamber as Rory Farrell has been raising issues on this for quite a while, but what shocked me was in terms of how bad it shaped the organisation.

“Hearing that they have 647 staff and that only 50 of these are based across five regional offices was probably not news but the level of the head count in Belfast was shocking.”

He said that there was other shocking content in the report including distribution of funding breakdowns.

The Sinn Féin elected representative claimed Invest NI had failed the city before bringing forward his motion.

“We as a council need to prepare a response to this shocking review of Invest NI which has highlighted what we have all known,” he said.

“We should task officers with preparing a response to this report and I think we should write to Invest NI on the back of this and ask for some explanation.

“We should also seek an urgent meeting not just with the CEO but with the board and I know in the past Rory and others have asked for that but it has fallen on deaf ears.

“This report offers us the catalyst to go back now to the board and the interim CEO and demand they come to Derry and have a meeting with us.

“We as a council want to hear what they intend to do to address this clear imbalance that exists within this report and we want them to work better with this council because we feel this council is doing a lot of heavy lifting and we can’t do it on the rate payers budget that we have.”

“We feel that their lack of provision in this space is putting pressure on our budgets here.”

He added: “Derry and Strabane is demanding better and we need more delivery.”

Seconding the proposal, SDLP councillor Rory Farrell added: “This isn’t about having a kick at Invest NI, it’s not about picking things out of the report to suit our agenda, this is about getting a fair deal for Derry and Strabane. We want a level playing field and at the minute it’s not level and it’s not balanced.

“When you look at the job creation figures for last year, Invest NI supported the creation of 67 jobs in this council area compared to 1,657 in Belfast City Council area.”

Adding an amendment to invite the Permanent Secretary as well, People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin said: “This organisation cannot walk into the future with these issues unaddressed.”

UUP Alderman Ryan McCready said the report clearly highlighted the disparity between the output for the Belfast region and the North West City region stating that ‘it’s out in the open for all to see’.

Although offering his support for the proposal, Independent councillor Gary Donnelly said he felt it would go nowhere.

He said: “What surprises me most is that people are shocked by this report.”

The proposal passed unanimously.

Gillian Anderson

Local Democracy Reporter