Hi °C | Lo °C 
Ed Curran's column (Comment, November 21) on the realities of devolution made my top 10 of Best Feature Prose of 2011. Incisive, honest and relevant to the situation we all find ourselves in.
The Programme for Government (PfG) made me feel both uncomfortable and apprehensive. What this Executive has produced, as Ed Curran reminds us, is a 'provincial, parochial document'.
Yes, it's good to double-glaze homes to keep in the heat. Pre-school education and the prospect of major golf competitions are commendable. But the three main features of peacetime life are the economy, the economy and the economy.
Ed reminds us we are 'a minnow swimming in a hugely turbulent worldwide pool' and the economic upheaval of the past decade has seen Northern Ireland in uncharted territory.
Too often in the past, successive British governments have bailed us out on the back of 'peace initiatives'.
Yes, we have a form of peace and everyone welcomes the normality of just being free from terrorism. But the 'peace process' should have led to the 'economic process' and since 1998 what have our Executives produced
We have record unemployment, especially with our young people, and sadly some are moving on and moving out. The Executive's promise of 25,000 new jobs within the next four years, much with direct foreign investment, will be extremely difficult.
In four years' time, how many affordable new homes will be built? Or how many more private businesses will close? How many more people will be suffering from fuel poverty?
The US economy is in meltdown, so no jobs from Uncle Sam. Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy are all at the mercy of the eurozone crisis, that directly affects the UK, which directly affects us.
BILL KERR
Newtownards, Co Down
