Hugh Logue

Hugh Anthony Logue (born 23 January 1949) is a Northern Irish former Social Democratic and Labour Party politician and economist who now works as a commentator on political and economic issues. He is also a director of two renewable energy companies in Europe and the United States. He is the father of author Antonia Logue.

Background

Logue first came to prominence as a member of the executive of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association^[1] – the only SDLP member of the executive. He stood as a candidate in elections to the new Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973 and was elected for Londonderry, aged 24, the youngest candidate elected that year.^[2]

The Northern Ireland State Papers of 1980 show that together with John Hume and Austin Currie he played a key role in presenting the SDLP'S 'Three Strands' approach to the Thatcher Government's Secretary of State Humphrey Atkins in April 1980 (Irish Times, 30 December 2010). The "Three Strands" approach eventually became the basis for the Good Friday Agreement. The Irish State papers from 1980 reveal that Logue was a confidante of the Irish Government of that time briefing it regularly on SDLP's outlook.

He is also known for his controversial comments at Trinity College Dublin at the time of the power-sharing Sunningdale Agreement, which many blame for helping to contribute to the Agreement's defeat, to wit, that: [Sunningdale was] "the vehicle that would trundle Unionists into a united Ireland".^[3]

Logue unsuccessfully contested the Londonderry seat in the February 1974 and 1979 Westminster Elections. He was elected to the 1975 constitutional convention and the 1982 Assembly. He was a member of the New Ireland Forum in 1983. In the 1980s he was a member of the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, and played a prominent part in its efforts to resolve the 1981 Irish hunger strike. His role was credited in Ten Men Dead by David Beresford,^[4]Biting the Grave by P. O'Malley^[5] and, more recently, in Blanketmen and Afterlives by former Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer Richard O'Rawe.^[6][7]

Following the 1994 IRA ceasefire, Logue, along with two EU colleagues, was asked by EU President Jacques Delors to consult widely throughout Northern Ireland and the Border regions and prepare recommendations for a Peace and Reconciliation Fund to underpin the peace process. Their community based approach became the blue print for the Peace Programme. In 1997, then EU President Jacques Santer asked the team, led by Logue to return to review the programme and advise for a renewed Peace ll programme.

Recent times

As the former vice-chairman of the North Derry Civil Rights Association^[8] gave evidence at the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday. He was special adviser to the Office of First and Deputy First Minister from 1998 to 2002 and as an official of the European Commission^[9] In 2002–03, Logue was a fellow of the Institute for British – Irish Studies at University College Dublin. In July 2006, Logue was appointed as a Board Member of the Irish Peace Institute, based at Limerick University and in 2009 was appointed Vice Chairman.

On 17 December 2007, Logue was appointed to Inter-Trade Ireland, the North South Body established under the Belfast Agreement to promote economic development in Ireland. Integrating Ireland economically has been a theme of Logue's writing throughout his career, most recently in the Irish Times^[10] and in earlier publications as economic spokesman for the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). He was economist at the Dublin-based National Board for Science and Technology from 1981–84.

Logue, after leaving the European Commission in 2005, became involved in Renewable Energy and is chairman of Priority Resources as well as a director of two companies, one in Solar Energy, the other in Wind Energy. In November 2011 he was elected to the main board of European Association of Energy (EAE).

References