NI leaders meet with Gov. O'Malley (Capital Gazette-Annapolis MD) -- Irish Media Watch Message Board

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Date Posted: 17:46:31 12/28/08 Sun GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: NI leaders meet with Gov. O'Malley (Capital Gazette-Annapolis MD)

Northern Ireland leaders meet with O'Malley
Annapolis
By LIAM FARRELL, Staff Writer
Published December 02, 2008

Gov. Martin O'Malley enjoys showing off Maryland's comprehensive database of statistics, and this time he got an international audience.

Leaders from Northern Ireland's government met with Mr. O'Malley in Annapolis yesterday to view a demonstration of the governor's StateStat program and encourage businesses and tourists to come to their country.

First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness dined with Maryland's highest-profile Irish-American before joining the governor's staff for a look at management technique.

The dinner was part of the ministers' four-day swing through Washington, D.C., and New York to meet with business and government leaders and encourage investment in Northern Ireland.

StateStat was implemented by Mr. O'Malley's administration to use statistics to track progress on everything from workforce absenteeism to the amount of nitrogen being put into the Chesapeake Bay.

The idea spawned from the fact government is skilled at measuring budgets and money but not the results supposed to come from those resources, Mr. O'Malley said.

Mr. Robinson said the Northern Ireland government is in the process of setting up its own system like StateStat.

"It's been very informative," he said. "It is good to see a working experiment."

The ministers encouraged people to get beyond older notions of Northern Ireland as a dangerous area unsuitable for business or tourism.

"(Northern Ireland) is a very different place than what they have seen on television in the past," Mr. Robinson said.

One sign of progress is the two politicians even sitting together at the same table in the Jeffrey Building on Francis Street. Both Mr. Robinson's and Mr. McGuinness' pasts reflect the turbulent history of Northern Ireland and they come from ideologically disparate origins.

Mr. Robinson is a member of the Democratic Unionist Party, which favors strong ties to Great Britain. The minister was part of protests over several initiatives that came out of the peace process, such as the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Mr. McGuinness has been a very controversial figure, and was a senior member of the Irish Republican Army in the 1970s. He has been a pivotal part of the Sinn Fein party and advocated for a political strategy to create a unified Ireland, but Mr. McGuinness also has been dogged in recent years by allegations he was still involved in IRA activities.

In the recent past, Mr. McGuinness said, he would not have talked "even about the weather" with Mr. Robinson, but relationships are changing. Both pointed to the recent resolution of a conflict over police and security power as evidence the political process is maturing and has moved beyond the need for international mediators.

"We did it ourselves," Mr. Robinson said. "We didn't take help from outside."

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