The finances of the public sector in Northern Ireland: 1968-1978

Abstract

In recent years the public sector has become more important in the Northern Ireland economy. Not only has the scale of public services grown appreciably, as it has also in Great Britain, but against the background of continuing violence and political instability, public sector finance has been used in an increased role both to meet the direct costs of violence and also to try to sustain an economy which, however vulnerable it was before the onset of the disturbances, has been greatly handicapped in many ways by the direct and indirect effects of the troubles. Indeed one of the important debates arising from the past decade is whether or not the form and scale of government action to support the regional economy was wholly beneficial and also whether indeed public sector resources could have been better used to offset the many faceted economic problems of the area.