John Esmond Birnie (born 6 January 1965) is an economist, author and former politician. He was an

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movem ...

(UUP)

Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs; ga, Comhaltaí den Tionól Reachtach; sco-ulster, Laa-Makkan Forgaitherars) are representatives elected by the voters to the Northern Ireland Assembly. About The Northern Ireland Assembly has 90 ...

(MLA) for Belfast South from 1998 until 2007. Birnie was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, Scotland. He attended Ballymena Primary School and later

Ballymena Academy Ballymena Academy is a mixed gender grammar school in the market town of Ballymena in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1828 as a small provincial school for children in the town and surrounding agricultural hinterland. Admissi ...

. He studied Economics at

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of th ...

before completing a PhD at

Queen’s University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

. He was an unsuccessful

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

candidate in the elections to

Belfast City Council Belfast City Council ( ga, Comhairle Cathrach Bhéal Feirste) is the local authority with responsibility for part of the city of Belfast, the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. The Council serves an estimated population of (), the l ...

for Balmoral in the 1993 Northern Ireland Local Election. In the 2005 Northern Ireland Local Election, he stood again for Balmoral, this time for the Ulster Unionist Party, and failed to get elected by 0.95 votes on the final count. Birnie was also second on the Conservative regional list for the 1996 Forum Election, but was not elected as the party was 12th most popular in electoral support, and only the top 10 parties were eligible for two top up seats. He was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998. During the Assembly he was Chairman of the Assembly's Employment and Learning Committee. He retained his seat in 2003 but lost it in the 2007 elections. He was then employed as a special advisor to Employment and Learning Minister,

Sir Reg Empey Reginald Norman Morgan Empey, Baron Empey, (born 26 October 1947), best known as Reg Empey, is a Unionist politician from Northern Ireland, who was the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 2005 to 2010. He was the chairman of the ...

. He is now Chief Economist for

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

in Northern Ireland.

Works

* * ''Firm, Competitiveness and Environmental Regulations: A Study of the European Food Processing Industries'' by David Hitchens, Esmond Birnie, Angela McGowan, and Ursula Triebswetter (Hardcover - 28 October 1998) * ''The Northern Ireland Economy: Performance, Prospects and Policy'' by Esmond Birnie and D.M.W.N. Hitchens (Hardcover - 23 February 1999) * ''Environmental Regulation and Competitive Advantage: A Study of Packaging Waste in the European Supply Chain'' by David Hitchens, Esmond Birnie, William Thompson, and Ursula Triebswetter (Hardcover - 29 March 2000)

References

External links

NI Assembly profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Birnie, Esmond 1965 births Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Alumni of Queen's University Belfast British economists Living people Northern Ireland MLAs 1998–2003 Northern Ireland MLAs 2003–2007 Ulster Unionist Party MLAs Politicians from Edinburgh Academics of Queen's University Belfast Academics from Edinburgh