Press Release
12 December 2001

CONSULTATION ON NI ECONOMY

Dr Seán Farren, MLA, Minister for Employment and Learning, today jointly chaired the tenth meeting of the Economic Development Forum (EDF), which took place in Ballymena, with Bruce Robinson, Permanent Secretary of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI).

The Forum, which consists of representatives of the major social partner organisations, provides advice to Ministers on matters affecting the development and future competitiveness of the Northern Ireland economy.

At today’s meeting the Forum exchanged views on the development of medium term strategic priorities for the Northern Ireland economy. These have been developed from the key themes in the Northern Ireland Executive’s Programme for Government; Strategy 2010; the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee’s Report on Strategy 2010 and the study by the Northern Ireland Economic Council on Capabilities and Innovation Perspective for Northern Ireland.

Other topics discussed at the meeting included progress reports on the work of the Employability Taskforce and the Regional Transportation Strategy.

Commenting on the work of the Employability Taskforce, Dr Farren paid tribute to the many organisations representing a wide range of interests for the valuable contribution they are making to the process.

He said: "Good progress continues to be made in this area. The Taskforce, which has met on six occasions, has completed a series of some 30 engagement meetings involving 245 individuals from 165 organisations, representative of the trades unions, voluntary and disabled sectors, minority ethnic groups and women’s groups."

"Around 2,100 discussion documents with questionnaires have been circulated to over 470 organisations enabling them to make a measured response for consideration. These responses are now being considered and will facilitate the preparation of an Action Plan which will integrate actions across Government Departments and agencies by next Spring."

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The membership of the Economic Development Forum is as follows:

Chairman Sir Reg Empey, Minister DETI

Deputy Chairman Bruce Robinson, Permanent Secretary, DETI

Minister for Regional Development - Peter Robinson

Minister for Employment and Learning - Dr Sean Farren

MEMBERS

Mark Ennis, CBI
Bob Barbour, Centre for Competitiveness
Dennis Rooney, IOD
Stephen Kingon, NI Chamber of Commerce
John McDaid, L’Derry Chamber of Commerce
Patricia McKeown, Jim McCusker, Peter Bunting, all representing NIC/ICTU
Professor John Hughes, Higher Education
Raymond Mullan, Further Education
Jacqueline Irwin and Seamus McAleavey representing NICVA
Will Taylor, Ulster Farmers Union
Michael McGuckin representing SOLACE.