Doesn’t matter, still worth it. Ireland should be united, not partially occupied.
Ireland is more peaceful and developed than the UK.
Totally worth it to up the standards in Northern Ireland by reuniting with the EU.
It wouldn’t, as Dublin can’t afford a fraction of the net subsidy central government pays.
Implementing a 48% increase in public pay gradually would bring wages in Northern Ireland in line with the Republic of Ireland’s.
Didn’t expect the difference to be this big, didn’t the unionist say that being part of UK would mean more money instead of less.
The UK may have more capital in total however Ireland invests more in their citizens.
They also didn’t take the huge financial hit from leaving the EU, and Northern Ireland took a comparatively bigger hit from that than the rest of the UK.
Ireland can afford higher public pay because it’s public services are much smaller, and do less, and have a different funding mix. For example their primary healthcare system isn’t free at point of use, and private healthcare does more, for more people. Ireland also has also chosen not to spend on a military and has a world class special forces and snipers, but has no way at all of defending its own airspace and a paltry defence of their territorial waters, relying instead on the largesse and self-interest of Britain. In this way, they spend on people rather than capex.
The net subsidy level that the UK invests in NI (much of it in capex) is far in excess of what Ireland could afford. For context, the entire island of Ireland would be outnumbered 3:1 by Greater London, so it’s a very limited taxpayer base, increasingly dependent on foreign investment that may not be forthcoming under Trump.
Do it! And then ask Scotland to join.
Funny how they list the cost in immediate terms, but don’t talk about the longterm savings at all…
The article goes into detail about the initial costs and potential economic benefits.
It reads a lot like “the UK grossly mismanaged Northern Ireland, but there’s no reason that Ireland wouldn’t be able to fix it in about a decade”.
