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Northern Ireland

My Lords, I had never set foot on the island of Ireland until 2005, when the Prime Minister asked me to go there as a direct-rule Minister. I made that clear to him. I had to say on the phone, ““But Tony, I’ve never been to the island of Ireland””. ““Don’t worry,”” he said, ““they’ll look after you really well””. They did. I have gone back voluntarily; I think I was the first direct-rule Minister ever to go on a weekend when I was not on duty. It caused consternation because the people who looked after me said that there was already someone on duty. I had gone over to support the game fair, privately in many ways. The noble Baroness is quite right that Northern Ireland is an enormously joyous place to visit. It can only succeed following yesterday. It is not all about money and investment, but the fact is that it has lower unemployment rates than most of Great Britain. Things have really changed during the past few years. If anyone had any doubts about that, yesterday should put the final seal on them.