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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BEST WISHES TO MICK MULVANEY
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HON. JOE WILSON
of south carolina
in the house of representatives
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Madam Speaker, the people of South
Carolina are so appreciative of the achievements and success of former
Congressman Mick Mulvaney serving as White House Chief of Staff for
President Donald Trump.
I include in the Record a deserved tribute published by John Feerhery
with his column entitled ``Mulvaney fit for Northern Ireland Post'' in
The HILL on March 10, 2020.
To the untrained eye, Mick Mulvaney's departure as White
House chief of staff and appointment as the president's
special envoy to Northern Ireland might seem to be a bit
curious and a big demotion for the former congressman from
South Carolina.
But those who know Irish politics understand that this new
assignment is very important to the United States and that
Mulvaney is well suited to take it on.
For his entire time in the White House, Mulvaney has
developed deep relationships within the Irish government and
with key actors in Northern Ireland. These relationships
became critical as Great Britain negotiated its departure
from the European Union and created a special status for
Northern Ireland and its border with the Republic.
Most analysts expect that Great Britain and the United
States will start negotiating a free trade agreement once the
dust settles on Brexit. But any FTA must acknowledge Northern
Ireland and the reality of the all-Ireland economy, a reality
that some negotiators might want to ignore. It all gets very
complicated.
Ireland has done well over the last decade, bouncing back
from the dark days of the 2008 financial crisis. Unemployment
is at historic lows, property values are at historic highs,
and growth is the strongest of any country in Europe. Multi-
national corporations from around the world, especially the
United States, choose to headquarter in Ireland because of
its highly trained workforce and its very favorable corporate
tax rates. Those corporate tax rates cause heartburn in
Brussels, but all political parties in Ireland support them,
even the left-leaning Sinn Fein.
Northern Ireland has a good story to tell, as well. They
have a highly educated population, a favorable regulatory
regime and increasingly close economic ties to their island
neighbor. But they also have the lingering legacy of the
Troubles, pockets of persistent economic hardship, border
communities that lack access to any infrastructure and a
fragile political structure that hasn't been functioning for
over three years.
And the reality is that Northern Ireland and Ireland are,
at the moment, two different countries with two different
outlooks, two different attitudes towards the future, two
different views of the past. Integrating these two different
countries economically while respecting their different
political and cultural traditions is not going to be easy.
The Good Friday accords, negotiated by George Mitchell,
another special envoy from the United States, are the basis
for the current power sharing agreement in Northem Ireland.
It has been two decades since that agreement was reached, and
for the most part, they have held up pretty well. That the
United States was central to bringing an end to the Troubles
was no accident. No other country has the ability to serve as
an honest broker to both sides, a role that continues to this
day.
Making sure that the United Kingdom continues to vigilantly
honor the Good Friday accords is one of Mick Mulvaney's
central tasks. Another is to make certain that Ireland
doesn't get ahead of itself when it comes to talk of a
unified island. Sinn Fein, the dominant Catholic political
party in the North, surprised observers and gathered the most
votes in the last election in the Republic. Talk of a new
border poll, a vote to see if the majority in the North would
want to unify with the South, immediately ensued.
But time is not ripe for those discussions. Let's see how
things develop in the post-Brexit world first.
Mick Mulvaney, whose grandparents hail from Country Mayo,
knows the players and knows the issues that separate them. He
knows that America must play the indispensable role in
continuing to broker peace and to make sure that Ireland as
an island succeeds both economically and socially.
Serving as chief of staff to President Trump undoubtedly
had its challenges. This new assignment will prove to be
challenging too.
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