[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 77 (Thursday, April 23, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                      BEST WISHES TO MICK MULVANEY

                                 ______
                                 

                            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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