In their conclusions, the authors recommend Northern Ireland – which remains relatively poor and heavily reliant on public sector spending and employment – embark on major reforms to improve its residents’ standard of living.
“Even though Ireland has a much higher national income, funding the needs of the people of Northern Ireland in a united Ireland would put huge financial pressure on the people of Ireland, resulting in an immediate major reduction in their living standards,” the report says.
Sounds about as bad as the reunification of (Western) Germany and the GDR, they are still way behind 30+ years later, and the western states are paying the bill to this day, while young people still migrate from east to west, with Berlin as the only real exception.
But the reunification of Germany was literally ‘alternativlos’ (without alternatives).
This does not say, it was implemented perfectly or even okay. But in the moment of time it happened, I think the great majority of actors really tried to do the right things.
disagree. Gregor Gysi sums it up very nicely at Jung & Naiv: https://youtu.be/lnjqyDnSk4o
It wasn’t so much a reunification, but rather a takeover. East Germany was more or less plundered by West Germans with a lot of capital after the reunification, leading to a stark divide: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1ark1p5/eastwest_germany_divide/
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Yeah, maybe. The GDR was under a whole different economic system, though. I mean, the UK and Ireland are pretty similar.
But I also think that if Ireland were in the UK and the UK were in the EU that probably everyone involved would be better-off – not to mention all those not-UK not-EU British territories, like the Isle of Man and Jersey and Guernsey. Obviously a lot of people who actually live in the British Isles don’t see things the same way, though, so…
The UK seems to be dominated by England, that only cares about England. Other countries aren’t well treated.
South-East England even
(Please forgive me if this is ignorant. I don’t know much about Irish politics)
Doesn’t the Republic of Ireland have a lot of multinational businesses headquartered there as a tax dodge?
Perhaps they could make the mega corps pay their fair share of taxes and use that to fund reunification
They would just move to the next tax haven, taking their jobs with them. Even if they raised taxes below the next haven, many would move out of spite.
You know, any time I hear an argument like this as a reason against making corporations pay their fair share, my response is always, “So what? Fuck em.”
Like…let them go. Something else will take their place. Regardless, you’re getting nothing out of them in the way of a responsible presence in the economic community, so even if they just leave and that’s it, it’s one less evening leech taking advantage of the situation.
There aren’t that many jobs attached to those headquarters, they’re mostly there on paper. It’s mostly about the taxes, which, although comparatively low, amount to a lot of revenue for the State.
That might be true for Luxembourg but not for Ireland.
All US big techs have pretty big hubs in Dublin, with engineers.
This is kinda true at the margins but people massively overstate the mobility of big businesses.
Very good article, thank you for sharing. Surprisingly thorough for being so short. I’d recommend others read it. The title alone does not give it justice.
Agreed. This is the first article I’ve encountered that explained the economics of possible reunification. Who knew that Northern Ireland receives so much financial support from the UK?
Who knew that Northern Ireland receives so much financial support from the UK?
This is a weird way to phrase this seeing as NI is very much part of the UK, and that anyone with even the most cursory understanding of the UK economy knows that London and South East of England is where most economic activity is concentrated and so most other areas are “subsidised” by them.
Also, the Barnett formula.
This is the simple reality of capital city focus. People want to be where the other people are, therefore they move there, and the cycle continues. Whether is proximity of existing industry (i.e. Finance, Film), statutory bodies (i.e. Parliament, Regulators), or just the higher density of people making a de facto larger scene (i.e. Arts), there’s nothing evil about this per say. However, there is a huge rotation of exterior talent through these areas as a result; meaning that the education system of Nottingham (as an example) contributes a great deal to the continued growth and stability of these sectors in London. It’s only right therefore that London somewhat repays that pattern.
It’s not just an ancient cities thing. You can look at funding in Scotland and see that Glasgow though relatively young in its current wave of economic prosperity (due reasons that aren’t worth going into) is already having it’s own version of this effect on the rest of the nation. Glasgow is slurping up a huge quantity of talent from the rest of Scotland.
As a Glaswegian in London it’s clear to me to see how the economics and impacts of these comparatively large cities are so similar (though surely at different scales).
The whole article(and/or the study) does not mention the cost of the current split(border,trade barriers-especially after Brexit, etc.) and how that affects both Irelands daily. And it neither talks about the EU funding Ireland would get for dealing with Northern Ireland - which would be substantial. Based on pre Brexit spending it would be around 5 billion per year, probably more. And it’s very likely that Ireland would be able to leverage a “development program” for additional subsidies from the EU after unification.
The UK is basically alone now-Ireland wouldn’t be alone with a reunification.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Brexit, demographic change and political turmoil in Northern Ireland have left many wondering if reunification could come sooner than expected.
Findings from the Dublin-based Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) take into account the current level of funding Northern Ireland receives from the UK government.
Northern Ireland’s public services currently rely heavily on a “subvention” of some €11 billion from the UK, which in the event of unification would need to be replaced by funding from Dublin.
According to the IIEA, the resulting spend would be equivalent to 10% of Ireland’s Gross National Income, 40% of which is currently spent on public services.
“To deal with the resulting deficit, which under the most favourable circumstances would persist for many years after unification, there would have to be a dramatic increase in taxation and/or a major reduction in expenditure.”
In their conclusions, the authors recommend Northern Ireland – which remains relatively poor and heavily reliant on public sector spending and employment – embark on major reforms to improve its residents’ standard of living.
The original article contains 535 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Ireland runs a budget surplus and has the lowest debt since the financial crisis. They’ve never been better placed to take on this project.
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It really isn’t, on top of the standard leftward shift experienced among the young folks of the west right now, Southern Ireland is also grappling with some very heinous ways the Catholic church abused them specifically, and have basically been rebelling against the more conservative traditional hard lines normally found in a Catholic society.
Same time, Northern Ireland has steadily been trending towards a population that really isn’t ideologically beholden to the old notions of protestentdom which animated the ulster volunteers. I think nowadays the argument against unification is mostly just a mix of “probably not ready yet” and “well I don’t want to anyways so fuck off.”
Currently NI doesn’t want to leave the UK, no. But religion isn’t really that strong a reason anymore.
I suspect the Republic of Ireland doesn’t want Northern Ireland either, for the reasons stated in the article.
So I’m not sure why we’re even talking about it.
Ireland wouldn’t have to do it alone if they reunified by joining the UK. :)