Derry needs to ‘talk up our strengths rather than talking down the place’ says MLA

Local MLAs agreed on the need for positivity but also spoke of a requirement for ‘honesty’ when it came to regional imbalance.

"From a north-west perspective, we have seen at first hand how business and education leaders, politicians and agencies working together can deliver real change on the ground.

"It also means talking up our offering and our strengths rather than talking down the place that we want to see prosper,” said Mr. Middleton, after he tabled a motion that called on the Economy Minister Conor Murphy to set ambitious targets to grow the North’s economy including through creating 5,000 new tech jobs.

Contributing to the debate SDLP MLA Sinéad McLaughlin commented: “The aim of the targets cannot just be to grow the economy.

"Otherwise, we are in danger of continuing the perverse imbalances and inequalities that exist today that allow those areas that are doing well to do even better still while places such as Derry and elsewhere in the west are allowed to fall further and further behind.

"The aim instead must be to grow and rebalance the economy, to end the postcode lottery of jobs, opportunity and investment and to reverse the regional inequalities that have been allowed to fester and that have created a two-tier economy, in which wealth is concentrated in some places and not in others, in which the difference between the council areas with the highest and lowest levels of economic inactivity is over 10 per cent and in which the difference in the levels of gross disposable income is over £4,000.”

Sinn Féin MLA Pádraig Delargy said he agreed with Mr. Middleton’s call about ‘talking up’ Derry.

“If I were an investor and I was sitting here, I would want to hear the positives and the benefits coming from Derry, the north-west region and regions across the North.

"I am proud to be from Derry. I am proud to call that place home. It is a fantastic place in which to live, work and build a life.

"I concur with the comments made by my colleague Mr Middleton. We need to start talking up areas such as Derry. We need to start making sure that areas across the North are spoken about positively in this place and that we talk up the place, its positivity and its people,” he said.

The Sinn Féin MLA said he had spoken to people in ‘dozens of companies...who have spoken about that’.

"Dozens of them can bear testimony to the fact that they have set up a business in Derry, grown that business and created a huge number of regional jobs. The thing that they say all the time is that they are here because of people,” he said.

SDLP MLA Mark H. Durkan stated: “I agree with my constituency colleague Mr Delargy on the need for positivity, but there is and always will be a need for honesty. Derry has been failed, and we want to fix that.

"I welcome any prospective investors who are watching the debate to come and play their part in an exciting new chapter for our constituency and the North.”

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