ABSTRACT
The political consensus which emerged from the mass unemployment of the 1920s and 1930s, and from the Second World War, that the priority for governments was to maintain full employment has been swept aside in favour of inflation and monetary management. The 'strategy of inequality', then, has institutionalised unemployment to a great extent. In terms of the realities of inequality, PE concentrates on unemployment and without judging the origins of the differential, it expresses the government's hope that 'a substantial reduction' in the unemployment differential can be achieved by the time of the 2011 Census. As promised in the Belfast Agreement, PE proposes the creation of a unified Equality Commission to replace a number of existing bodies: the Fair Employment Commission, the Equal Opportunities Commission for Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Disability Council and the Commission for Racial Equality for Northern Ireland.
