Last night it was revealed that Kieran Kennedy (a former boss of O’Neill’s Sports) had resigned from the board of Invest NI, claiming the organisation had not done enough for the north west. As Davy Wilson writes in his report for the BBC…
“(Kennedy) has resigned from the board of Invest NI after alleging Northern Ireland’s economic development agency discriminates against the region. Kieran Kennedy…quit in June, five years after he first joined in March 2020.
Minutes of that meeting show Mr Kennedy saying he had lost faith in Invest NI’s leadership team after a discussion about the agency’s office in Londonderry…He stated that, in his opinion, the team was not committed to achieving regional balance and felt that the north west was being discriminated against. He further stated that, in his opinion, the executive committee did not want to make alternative locations work and he had lost all faith in them as a leadership team. Mr Kennedy concluded by tendering his resignation from Invest NI’s board.”
Kennedy’s resignation is bound to fuel the sense of grievance that is felt in the north west with the region seemingly feeling permanently overlooked by politicians based in Belfast. Not only have there been economic setbacks in recent months such 140 job losses at BT in April or the chaos and incompetence over the proposed dualling of the A5, but in other spheres it appears the north west just can’t catch a break.
Several days ago, Communities Minister Gordon Lyons announced the recipients of funding from the Northern Ireland Football Fund. Of the forty-one clubs who applied, twenty were successful but none of those successful clubs were based in the north west with clubs in Derry, Limavady and Coleraine all missing out, leaving local fans fuming. While Lyons insisted geography played no role in his decisions, the BBC report quotes former Coleraine manager Ruaidhri Higgins as saying “”Geographically, for me, the north west has been shafted again.”
Derry and the north west is of course a region politically contested between Sinn Féin, who hold the Department of the Economy brief, and the SDLP who are currently leading the opposition on the hill. The BBC report on Kieran Kennedy’s resignation covers the reaction of both parties…
“Foyle MP Colum Eastwood said: “Kieran Kennedy’s principled decision shows how bad things are with the executive’s failure to drive economic investment outside Belfast.”
Foyle SDLP MLA Sinead McLaughlin said reports of Mr Kennedy’s resignation was a “worrying development”. “For him to resign in frustration is a damning indictment of the lack of progress to date,” she said.
A Sinn Féin spokesperson said the party had made “driving forward progress and opportunity in the north west a top priority in the executive”.
The Department for the Economy said regional balance was a “top priority” for the minister, Caoimhe Archibald. The department’s sub-regional economic plan, it added, sets out Dr Archibald’s “commitment to developing a regionally balanced economy where everyone shares in the benefits of prosperity.” It said the local economic partnership in Derry and Strabane would receive £5m over the next three years to give businesses “greater autonomy and support to make decisions based on local need”. The department also pointed to major recent investments in the region by Seagate, EY, Alchemy and FinTrU, as well as growth at the Ulster University campus in Derry.”
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