Latest news with #BelfastAgreement
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Tenders for new €165m Dublin-Belfast hybrid trains being evaluated almost two years after issuing
Irish Rail and Translink in Northern Ireland are evaluating tenders for the replacement of cross-Border Enterprise trains between Dublin and Belfast . The €165 million project will see the current four trains on the route replaced by eight trains, six of which are expected to be in service. The other two will act as backups. The trains are being designed as a hybrid electric/diesel service initially with the possibility to switch to fully electric in line with longer-term plans to electrify the whole line between Dublin and Belfast. The tender was published in September 2023, and the contract is expected to be awarded before the end of this year. Irish Rail spokesman Barry Kenny said a time frame of about two years from tender to award of contract represents 'no undue delay'. READ MORE 'In fact, it is about three months shorter than it took to order the trains for the Dart+ programme.' Asked why the process takes so long, Mr Kenny said the procurement is 'very complex'. The jointly-operated Enterprise was introduced in 1947 and continued to run throughout the Troubles. Journey times range between two hours and five minutes and 2¼ hours, with stops in Portadown, Newry, Dundalk and Drogheda. There are 15 daily services from Monday to Saturday and eight services on Sundays. The new trains are expected to reduce travel times to about one hour and 55 minutes. The current Enterprise trains on the route reach the end of their design life in 2027, but they are expected to get a short extension, with the new fleet due into service in 2029. The new hybrid trains will be designed to switch from the 1,500 volt overhead electric wires, which power the Dart, to 25,000 volts, which is used for long distance train journeys. Irish Rail and Translink were granted funding of €165 million for the project under the Peaceplus crosscross-Border programme, that is managed by the Special EU Programmes Body, a North-South implementation body established under the Belfast Agreement. Additional funding for the project is to be provided jointly through the Department of Transport and the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland. The total cost is expected to be under €200 million. The contract for the manufacturing of the new Enterprise fleet is expected to be awarded this year, subject to final funding approval from the Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. Campaign group Rail Users Ireland welcomed the plans to upgrade the Enterprise service but said the Dublin to Cork fleet should also be replaced. Spokesman Mark Gleeson said strong passenger growth since an hourly Dublin – Belfast service was introduced in 2024 'points to an urgent need for new trains'. 'Full public consultation is required to ensure seating layouts, comfort and accessibility issues can be looked at before construction to avoid issues later,' he said.
Irish Post
12-08-2025
- Business
- Irish Post
Northern Ireland to receive half a billion pound investment as part of Britain's 'plan for change'
NORTHERN IRELAND is set for a major economic boost as British Chancellor Rachel Reeves visits Belfast to confirm more than half a billion pounds in public and private investment. The funding, aimed at strengthening the region's long-term economic prospects, is part of the British government's broader 'Plan for Change' strategy. At the heart of the announcement is £310 million in fresh funding for Northern Ireland's City and Growth Deals, allocated to support key high-growth sectors such as advanced manufacturing, digital innovation and the creative industries. Speaking during a visit to Studio Ulster, Reeves said the new investment was about 'fixing the foundations' for a more prosperous future. She praised Northern Ireland's 'talent and ambition', citing its leadership in areas like film production and defence technology. The Chancellor also unveiled £137 million in new funding to address issues related to terrorism, paramilitary activity and organised crime. Officials say the aim is to create safer communities while encouraging further economic investment by removing barriers to growth. In a major vote of confidence from the private sector, defence firm Thales confirmed a £100 million expansion at its Castlereagh site, which is expected to create up to 200 new jobs. The company already employs around 900 people in the region, with the government's broader commitment to increasing defence spending expected to further cement Northern Ireland's role in the industry. Reeves' visit comes on the back of the largest funding package for the Northern Ireland Executive in real terms since the 1998 Belfast Agreement. The settlement, which averages £19.3 billion annually until 2029, is designed to help stabilise public services and support ongoing economic development. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, highlighted the region's potential for growth, particularly given its access to both UK and EU markets. He said the government remained committed to backing Northern Ireland through a mix of targeted investment and broader economic strategy. Additional support is being directed toward innovation-led growth. Belfast and Derry are set to share at least £30 million under the new Local Innovation Partnerships Fund, a £500 million British and Northern Irish initiative designed to empower regional leaders to develop local solutions for economic challenges. Northern Ireland will also benefit from increased aerospace and research funding, supporting thousands of jobs across both sectors. Studio Ulster's Chief Executive, Professor Declan Keeney, said the investment was a vital recognition of the studio's role in attracting global productions and training local talent. Ulster University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Bartholomew, described the development as a symbol of what's possible when government, industry and education collaborate effectively. Thales British Managing Director for Integrated Airspace Protection Systems, Nigel MacVean, also hailed the defence investment as a foundation for growth, saying it would help accelerate innovation and expand the company's reach both within the Northern Ireland, Britain and globally. See More: Northern Ireland, Rachel Reeves, Studio Ulster, Thales
Belfast Telegraph
12-08-2025
- Business
- Belfast Telegraph
‘Right and fair' to end inheritance tax exemption for farms, says Chancellor on Belfast visit
And she told Belfast Telegraph that decisions including making inheritance tax payable by farmers had been 'right and fair' and ensured the tax burden for 'ordinary working people' did not go up. The Chancellor visited Ulster University facility Studio Ulster in Belfast this morning, before another stop later at defence manufacturer Thales in the east of the city. The government said her visit was to confirm investments which would 'fix the foundations for long-term prosperity'. One investment was the 'largest real-terms settlement for the Northern Ireland Executive since the Belfast Agreement, averaging £19.3bn per year until 2029'. Those include £310m in new UK Government funding for Northern Ireland's City and Growth Deals, confirmed in June's Spending Review and now allocated to support high-growth sectors. Her visit to Thales will mark £100m new private sector investment from Thales, supporting expansion and up to 200 new jobs in the defence sector. And she'll also confirm £137m in new funding to tackle paramilitarism and organised crime, removing barriers to investment and growth. Her decision in the Autumn Budget last year to remove an exemption from inheritance tax for agricultural property from April next year was met with vocal opposition by farmers in Northern Ireland. Asked on Tuesday morning if she had any sympathy for farming families now facing inheritance tax and if she would go back on the changes, she said: 'Last year at the Budget I had to raise significant sums of money to put our public finances back on a firm footing but also to put that record investment into our NHS and also to provide that record settlement for the NI Executive, the biggest real-terms settlement since the Good Friday Agreement, and that money is only available because of the decisions that we took in the Budget last year. 'But they were the right and the fair decisions. We didn't increase the taxes that ordinary working people paid. Their national insurance, income tax, Vat, fuel duty did not go up in the way that the previous Tory government had in their plans, so protecting the incomes of ordinary working people and since we came into office, real wages have been rising at a faster rate than inflation.' She added: 'Specifically on agricultural property relief, if you've got agricultural property worth less than £3m and you own it jointly with a partner, you'll pay no inheritance tax when you pay that farm on. Belfast History Explained: Who was Mary Ann McCracken? 'But I do believe that if you do have agricultural property worth more than £3m you should make a contribution but the inheritance tax on that is half the rate that anybody else pays, just 20%, and it's payable over 10 years interest-free, so I do think that fits the required balance, we needed to raise money to invest in public services. "If people disagree with those tax changes, they either need to admit that they're not willing to put the money into our public services and that settlement for the NI Executive or that they would increase taxes elsewhere, for example on ordinary working people. "Those weren't my choices, I made my choices and I'm very happy to defend them.'
Irish Times
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on diaspora voting: broaden the franchise for presidential elections
The question of whether Irish citizens living abroad and in Northern Ireland should be allowed to vote in presidential elections has lingered for too long in the realm of deferral and indecision. This is despite previous commitments on the matter and the importance of the office for many Irish people who live outside the State but still identify with the nation. Only citizens ordinarily resident in the jurisdiction may vote in national elections. This excludes over a million Irish-born people living overseas and an even larger number in Northern Ireland who have a right to Irish citizenship. The rationale for this has traditionally rested on the idea that only those who live with the consequences of State policy should have a say in shaping it. But the presidency is not a policy-making office. It is a symbolic and unifying institution, often acting as a bridge between Ireland and its global citizens. Every president since Mary Robinson has embraced that role. The office embodies not only the State but the wider idea of the Irish nation. There is a strong argument that the franchise should reflect the broader Irish family, including those who have left. Extending voting rights to Irish citizens living north of the Border would be an act of constitutional generosity consistent with the spirit of the Belfast Agreement. It would recognise them as part of the national community without prejudicing their political preferences. READ MORE A referendum on the issue was announced in 2017 with cross-party support. It was delayed by Brexit and then shelved during the pandemic. Since then, political will has quietly dissipated. The Government now appears unwilling to reignite the debate, despite previous commitments and strong support from diaspora organisations. Minister of State for the Diaspora, Neale Richmond, said this week that the Government was concerned a referendum on the issue could be defeated if there was insufficient debate and consultation in advance of the vote. But it is in the Government's own gift to start that process. It should do so without further delay.
Irish Times
28-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Senator George Mitchell: The man Ian Paisley called ‘a foreigner and a pro-Irish republican'
In the months after the signing of the Belfast Agreement in April 1998, a letter arrived in the morning post at the homes of more than a few journalists in Ireland and Britain. It was an unusual one. I was one of those to receive it – a personal note of thanks from former US senator George Mitchell , the man who had chaired the years of tortuous negotiations in Stormont. In it, he said he deeply appreciated the role the press plays, particularly in a divided society. I was struck by his decision to pen letters to the same reporters who had questioned him, his motivations and his handling of the talks at every turn. This was so especially given that by then he was back home in New York with his wife and young son and could have been forgiven for never wanting to think about Northern Ireland , its people or its politicians ever again. We were used to dealing with stuffy, aloof British government ministers sent to Belfast , often as a punishment. But Mitchell was cut from a different cloth, always approachable, open, interested. READ MORE Agreement in Northern Ireland did not come overnight. It took many painful months and years. But George Mitchell stuck at it, keeping the negotiators at the table, despite the violence that continued on the streets. Photograph: Jan McCullough George Mitchell filming in his home town of Waterville, Maine. Photograph: Jan McCullough When he and his wife, Heather, returned to Belfast in April 2023 for the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement, he stole the show at an event at Queen's University, even in the presence of Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and others. [ 'A handful of hopefuls can create change': George Mitchell passes on the torch to a new generation Opens in new window ] His words that day were typical of the man from Maine. He celebrated the achievement of the historic accord, but he also implored everyone to do more, to continue to build on the peace, not to take it for granted. I left Queen's that day not only determined to document what he had achieved while in Belfast, but to also understand what it was from his background that made him such a successful negotiator. When his son, Andrew, was born in October 1997 during one of the most fruitless chapters of the talks, one of his staff told him that 61 children had been born in Northern Ireland on the same day – children who deserved to grow up in peace. It was a thought that drove him often. He should never have been in Northern Ireland. The senator from the state of Maine had passed up an opportunity to be President Clinton's pick for the Supreme Court. In January 1995, he became Clinton's economic adviser on Northern Ireland. Having organised that year's Washington economic conference on Northern Ireland, he drafted the Mitchell Principles to help bring Sinn Féin and the loyalist parties into the talks, if they accepted exclusively peaceful means. George Mitchell with film-maker Trevor Birney (centre) and film crew in Waterville, Maine Few were surprised when he was Dublin and London's first choice to chair the talks, even if it provoked outrage from Ian Paisley in early 1996, who said the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) would quit if Mitchell arrived. 'This is about whether George Mitchell, a foreigner and a pro-Irish republican, should preside at talks that have the future destiny of Northern Ireland at hand,' the DUP leader charged. Many others were simply amazed that such a senior US figure would dedicate his time to finding a solution to a conflict deemed unfixable, where so many other efforts had failed before. That was his art, it was never about him. When we set out to make The Negotiator, it was with a desire to discover what had shaped him as a man, as a politician and as a skilled negotiator He quietly went about gaining the trust of those who would occupy Castle Buildings on Stormont's grounds for two years. Resolutions are not found in public. They are hidden in the cracks and crevices of differences. Mitchell's attention to granular detail and his ability to listen with intention allowed him to reach a deep understanding of the conflict that ultimately led to compromise and agreement. Film-maker, Trevor Birney I was one of the many journalists who gathered daily outside the gates of Castle Buildings on Stormont's grounds, attempting to find something new to say. Even though I was very junior, Mitchell and his team were always approachable and helpful as journalists sought to find where truth lay between the briefings and counter-briefings from the governments and the political parties. [ George Mitchell: Northern Ireland's peace must evolve. And if it is here to stay it must be shared Opens in new window ] Agreement did not come overnight. It took many painful months and years. But Mitchell stuck at it, keeping the negotiators at the table, despite the violence that continued on the streets. He could have issued ultimatums and deadlines. Instead, he let everyone air their grievances, day after day. People had to be heard, and to feel that they had been heard. An agreement would be written by them, not dictated by him. That was his art, it was never about him. When we set out to make The Negotiator, it was with a desire to discover what had shaped him as a man, as a politician and as a skilled negotiator. In large part, the answer was found in his home state of Maine, where he honed his political skills as a young lawyer. His mother, who could not read or write, was from Bkassine in southern Lebanon. His Boston-born father had been adopted by a Lebanese-American family. George and his four siblings had a humble childhood, living in a two-room shack by the side of the Kennebec river in Waterville. Early on, he learned that listening to others was the key. Later, as a US senator for Maine, he spent six years finding an agreement over Maine's Acadia National Park's boundaries – an issue that had caused bitter local division for 25 years: 'Patience is a muscle,' he said. Leaving Queen's at the end of the 25th anniversary celebrations, I felt that we had failed properly to document his life, and the road that brought him to Belfast despite all of the time that he had spent in the city. Before he left, I asked him whether he would take part in a documentary charting his life. Thankfully, he agreed. Over several days, we interviewed him at the Mitchells' family home on Mount Desert Island, and also in New York. [ George Mitchell says Belfast Agreement will always be a challenge Opens in new window ] There was a lot of life to cram into one film. In Northern Ireland, he had achieved something that was widely accepted as impossible – a political settlement that brought an apparently intractable conflict to an end. There are busts of him in Belfast. A Colin Davidson portrait celebrates him in New York. People still want to shake his head and tell him they had believed that he was doomed to fail, but were grateful that he had not. Today, for all its flaws, the Belfast our daughters have grown up in was gifted by those who took risks for peace in an agreement hammered out in Castle Buildings on days when there was often little hope. There were many peacemakers, but Mitchell was at the centre. His legacy stands as a beacon: conflicts can be solved if people learn to listen, to properly listen. Where patience is a muscle. The lesson, according to George Mitchell. Journalist Trevor Birney's projects have included producing the Kneecap film and writing a book and making a documentary about businessman Seán Quinn. His documentary The Negotiator was released this week.
