Are the brits trying to offload lame NI counties to us?

murphaph

Just watching all this local government reorganisation that's coming soon to a province near you and I can't help but get the feeling that the british government are trying to partition NI into green and orange councils with a view to offloading the biggest subsidy suckers west of the Bann to us in the south. They are eliminating the current 26 district councils and replacing them with Belfast City Council and 6 other 'super' councils (which will probably roughly follow the old county boundaries). The 3 west of the Bann will be green counties, no doubt and the 3 to the east will be orange, again, no doubt.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I bet HMG would just love to ditch 3 NI counties and keep the only ones with a half decent infrastructure and the prospects to actualy support themselves. We in Leinster and Cork are already supporting our own 3 Ulster counties, we really don't need to support another 3 IMO.

tba

murphaph wrote:

We in Leinster and Cork are already supporting our own 3 Ulster counties.

explain, your statement confuses me

maccor

this whole 'subsidy suckers' **** annoys me. what the hell does that mean?

BrianD

About time there was a reorganisation. NI must be the most bureaucratic and most governed place in the world. Even the health boards have a north, south, east and west regions. Keeps everyone busy I suppose.

maccor

is murphaph some kind of expert on the economy of the north or something with inside info the rest of us dont know, or is he/she just someone who doesnt like the north? I find the OP in bad taste tbh.

maccor

though agreed - its very burocratic up there. still, thats what happens when you create a place that cant exist on its own just to prop up some unionist agenda

murphaph

tba wrote:

explain, your statement confuses me

None of the 3 RoI Ulster counties can support their spending through taxes raised within their own boundaries. Same goes for all of Connaught and a lot of Munster. Cork pays for itself and these poorer (only in tax revenue-they aren't poor counties) counties as does nearly every county in Leinster.

murphaph

maccor wrote:

this whole 'subsidy suckers' **** annoys me. what the hell does that mean?

It means that those counties cannot support the level of government spending they receive, so they are subsidsed by other parts of the UK.

murphaph

maccor wrote:

is murphaph some kind of expert on the economy of the north or something with inside info the rest of us dont know

It's all freely available and in the public domain. NI requires massive subsidies (much like most of the BMW region) to exist in it's current incarnation. The poorest regions are all west of the Bann. They don't have any decent infrastructure there-it's pretty much all centred on Belfast.

maccor wrote:

or is he/she just someone who doesnt like the north?

Why are you trying to personalise a socio-economic thread? I'm talking politics and economics and you're on about "liking NI". Irrelevant.

maccor wrote:

I find the OP in bad taste tbh.

Why? There are major political changes afoot in NI and this is boards.ie/politics.

Maskhadov

I think the brits did a fantastic job with the north when you consider the sh1t they had to put up with for 30 years. They pumped money into the place and managed to keep the whole thing going.

Granted looking at the north now its a bit of a mess. There is an over reliance on the public sector to put it midly. The north needed all those public sector jobs since there was no private sector.

Things are looking better for the north now post de-commisioning and it only makes sense to follow the Republic's sucessfull and efficent model. (i.e 6 county councils and one city council for belfast)

Goodshape

Dublin and Cork are the best excuses for citys we have in this country, as such people from these 'subsidy sucking' countys move there to make money for themselves and their country.

I'm from Donegal and am here working in Dublin as there's not much on offer for what I want to do in Donegal. Am I a subsidy sucker?

murphaph

Goodshape wrote:

I'm from Donegal and am here working in Dublin as there's not much on offer for what I want to do in Donegal. Am I a subsidy sucker?

No. You're from a sparsely populated county and have moved to a city to find employment, just like millions of people all over the world-standard practice. That's why cities exist of course and if we all wished to live and work within a few miles of where we grew up then human society would never move on as nobody would interact with anybody else and we'd be left with an agrarian society. Cities are a fact of life and I don't mind that city dwellers like you and I are subsidising children's education and healthcare etc. in places like Donegal, but we are subsidising enough as it is and we don't need to subsidise another 3 counties west of the Bann.

Goodshape

Grand. You're orignal post came accross as slightly elitist.

I aggree that they shouldn't be allowed to simply pick the best of the bunch and throw us the leftovers.

tba

blair: here bertie have some counties..
bertie: can I have some more sir...

Richard

murphaph wrote:

They are eliminating the current 26 district councils and replacing them with Belfast City Council and 6 other 'super' councils (which will probably roughly follow the old county boundaries).

No. According to the BBC the merge will be as follows:

1. Belfast - as is.
2. North Down, Castlereagh, Ards, Down (basically east Co Down and a bit of Co Antrim)
3. Lisburn, Antrim Borough, Newtownabbey and Carrickfergus (south-east Co Antrim and a bit of Co Down)
4. Coleraine, Moyle, Ballymoney, Ballymena, Larne (north Co Antrim and a bit of Co L'derry)
5. Strabane, Derry, Limavady, Magherafelt (most of Co L'derry, a bit of west Co Antrim, and north Co Tyrone)
6. Fermanagh, Dungannon, Omagh, Cookstown (Co Fermanagh, most of Co Tyrone, a bit of west Co Armagh)
7. Armagh, Craigavon, Newry and Mourne, Banbridge (most of Co Armagh and a bit of south-west Co Down).

So it isn't based on the counties - which makes sense due to the big difference in populations. The councils will be unitary - like the existing ones. This is different to the Republic and much of England, where there are usually different layers of council. E.g. Athlone is covered by Westmeath Co Council and Athlone Town Council.

Derry City Council will be abolished under this (thus solving the council naming issue!), though we don't know what the new name for the area's council will be. I can't find any new names. Maybe they'll use compass points - so we'd have North-West Council or similar. Or maybe they'd use old names from history. Dalriada, anyone?

And in response to the original question:

1. I don't think this makes a United Ireland any more or any less likely.
2. The NI counties aren't lame, thank you very much. Even in the 80s they were much better off than those in the south.

Diorraing

Nonsense. The remaining three counties wouldn't be able to support themselves. Thats why Craig didn't just take them at the start even though they would give a clear Unionist majority. Ireland should only take all 6. As mentioned earlier the Unionist counties have the better infrastrucute (wonder why?)

Flex

No way would i accept repartition based on giving us back 3 counties. They insisted on forcing catholic areas into NI so now they have to deal with the consequences of their greed; a significant nationalist minority and the fact that their protestant state for protestants will cease to exist shortly after catholics overtake them. repartitioning the north east to create another unionist dominated province with a new inbuilt majority would be like letting the unionists have their cake and eat it.

Flex

Diorraing wrote:

Nonsense. The remaining three counties wouldn't be able to support themselves. Thats why Craig didn't just take them at the start even though they would give a clear Unionist majority. Ireland should only take all 6. As mentioned earlier the Unionist counties have the better infrastrucute (wonder why?)

Im not sure about not being able to support themselves. after all, look at gibraltor and luxembourg

mike65

I dont see any deals being done, sure Gerry would be appalled at being cut off, maybe if the Falls road had an opt-out!

I was listening to someone from NI talking on BBC radio today and he stated that NI had 25,000 people on the job-seekers allowance which sounded remarkably low. If there is nearly full employment then cutting back the public service now makes sense.

Mike.

Maskhadov

The northern ireland economy has been doing pretty good in fairness. Its an excellent time to get rid of all the extra buraracy and stimulate the private sector.

The british government said that it will plough back the money into the north so they should notice some extra cash around.

The north should be nearly able to break even if the british government made a concerted effort at it. Some new jobs and cost cutting and things should surely improve.

They should also continue to establish links with the south, power lines, availing of hospitals, all anything else that can cut down overheads.

Similarly we should do the same. For example, those people in Monaghan should head up to Armagh etc etc.

Any talk of a single country on this island should be by the consent of 80% or more on both sides of the border. Dividing up parts of the north and changing over to the republic is nonsense.

bonkey

murphaph wrote:

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but
We in Leinster and Cork are already supporting our own 3 Ulster counties.

With a little editing of your post, I think its clear you have answered your own question.

murphaph

Mike, I hope to God you're right and there's no secret agenda to partition NI. Things are fine the way they are.

Richard, the 3 counties west of the Bann are economically lame, just like Donegal and Leitrim etc.

In the 1980's you'd have been hard pressed to find anywhere in Europe with worse economies than the RoI. It was bleak, bleak and some more bleak.

Bloodychancer

murphaph wrote:

Mike, I hope to God you're right and there's no secret agenda to partition NI. Things are fine the way they are.

Richard, the 3 counties west of the Bann are economically lame, just like Donegal and Leitrim etc.

In the 1980's you'd have been hard pressed to find anywhere in Europe with worse economies than the RoI. It was bleak, bleak and some more bleak.

Perhaps you would like us to repartition the other way given your obvious disdain for the "subsidy suckers"in Donegal Monaghan Cavan and Connaught but why stop at Provinces and counties perhaps we should evaluate on a town by town or street by street or maybe House by House basis. We could hive off all the subsidy sucking unemployed, old, sick, disabled etc etc who are dragging us all down. If the Brits wont take them perhaps we could build camps for them while we figure out a "Final Solution".
Yes an economy like that could rule for a 1000 years just healthy non subsidy sucking Pure Irish people.

Zombrex

No real comment but have to say that is the best thread title I have seen in a long time

Zombrex

Bloodychancer wrote:

We could hive off all the subsidy sucking unemployed, old, sick, disabled etc etc who are dragging us all down.

Don't be stupid ... just put them to work in the underground sugar mines ...

(yes I am a bit drunk)

murphaph

Bloodychancer wrote:

Perhaps you would like us to repartition the other way given your obvious disdain for the "subsidy suckers"in Donegal Monaghan Cavan and Connaught but why stop at Provinces and counties perhaps we should evaluate on a town by town or street by street or maybe House by House basis. We could hive off all the subsidy sucking unemployed, old, sick, disabled etc etc who are dragging us all down. If the Brits wont take them perhaps we could build camps for them while we figure out a "Final Solution".
Yes an economy like that could rule for a 1000 years just healthy non subsidy sucking Pure Irish people.

You immediately lept on my expression about subsidy sucking counties and turned it into a statement about the inhabitants of those counties themselves. I accept that regions of every country will be less productive and require a subsidy from the more productive regions, but why would we want even more subsidy sucking counties to subsidise when we have plenty as it is?! This thread is about the long term intentions of the british wrt Northern Ireland and whether or not their latest local government reorganisation has an alterior motive. It's interesting that ONLY SF support this initiative which will create 3 nationalist councils which they will dominate and 3 unionist which will likely be dominated by the DUP, none of the other parties in NI support this initiative, not the SDLP or Alliance.

jrey1981

murphaph wrote:

I bet HMG would just love to ditch 3 NI counties and keep the only ones with a half decent infrastructure and the prospects to actualy support themselves.

Of course they would, the place has huge reliance on public sector jobs and costs UK taxpayers about 4 billion a year or something...

At a time when the UK economy is slowing down as well...

murphaph

murphaph wrote:

It's interesting that ONLY SF support this initiative which will create 3 nationalist councils which they will dominate and 3 unionist which will likely be dominated by the DUP, none of the other parties in NI support this initiative, not the SDLP or Alliance.

Why is it interesting?
The set up as it is amounts to a bureocratic gravy train with little or no sense to it.
Theres only 1.7 million people there and they have like 26 councils amongst other quangos...

You've started this thread with a conspiracy theory about this being a move to integrate the west of the Bann into the ROI without any proof, so perhaps thats where it belongs.

Moved to the conspiracy the0ries board.

tba

I heard the English found oil under Belfast and thats why they are keeping a tighter hold on the city...

Tazz T

tba wrote:

I heard the English found oil under Belfast and thats why they are keeping a tighter hold on the city...

If they had, the Americans would have liberated Belfast centuries ago.

tba

Operation
Irish
Liberation?

Tazz T

murphaph wrote:

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I bet HMG would just love to ditch 3 NI counties and keep the only ones with a half decent infrastructure and the prospects to actualy support themselves. W

That would be a good start? Some parts of Northern Ireland already feel like part of the South and the majority of the people that live there would prefer to be part of the free state.

And for your information, Derry City has become very prosperous in the last ten years, employment is at an all time low and house prices are going thtough the roof - so give over about 'subsidy suckers'. There are far more impoverished counties in the republic.

Nuttzz

You cant really compare a City to a county....

If the boundry commission back in the 20's had of gone the way Collins etc hoped for we would have had these counties...

murphaph

Tazz T wrote:

That would be a good start? Some parts of Northern Ireland already feel like part of the South and the majority of the people that live there would prefer to be part of the free state.

It hasn't been the Free State since 1949. Perhaps those people who desire to live in the "Free State" should learn the actual name of the country first.

Tazz T wrote:

And for your information, Derry City has become very prosperous in the last ten years, employment is at an all time low and house prices are going thtough the roof - so give over about 'subsidy suckers'. There are far more impoverished counties in the republic.

Low employment is a bad thing, I take it you mean 'low unemployment' but so what? The entirety of NI requires a subsidy that amounted to £3.48bn the last time the figures were made public. That's like 5 Dublin Port Tunnels a year and there has been no major infrastructural projects in Northern Ireland since direct rule began (Lagan/Foyle bridges and Westlink are about it) so that's all going to pay the public sector and not to fund any major projects ith long term benefits.

How well do you think Derry City would do if all it's bloated public sector jobs were stripped from it? After they go you start to see the retail and leisure sector suffer so those jobs start to go. The old reliable of the Northwest was textiles and that has been desimated. I don't argue for one second that there aren't more 'impoverished' (bad choice of words-I never used it) counties in RoI, that's my whole point-we taxpayers in the east are already subsidising these counties and don't want to subsidise another three. We'd rather see some of our own taxes spent on improvements in Leinster to ease our chronic traffic problems and lack of beds in all our Dublin hospitals.

dr zoidberg

Well its economy is doing quite well, but a very significant proportion of the jobs are in the public sector, which amounts to nothing less than the UK government propping up the economy (understandable considering foreign companies were afraid to invest there for the past few decades).

In the twelve months to June 2005 Northern Ireland (30 per cent), Scotland (24 per cent)
and Wales (23 per cent) all had higher proportions of their workforce working in the public
sector than England (20 per cent)

Source
The Irish equivalent is 21 %, calculated based on this report
So a significant percentage of economic activity is artificially induced by the government. Westminster would probably be very grateful to have NI taken off its hands, but that is not a politically viable situation at the moment. I don't think, however, that reorganising council boundaries is a conspiracy to offload them to us. It's going to be an "all-or-nothing" situation.

Is Derry actually called Londonderry :eek: ?

Zombrex

dr zoidberg wrote:

Is Derry actually called Londonderry :eek: ?

Yes .. God save the queen ..

billy the squid

earthman, this is not the recycle bin for politics.

now to the op, how is streamlining the northern ireland public sector going to transfer three counties of northern ireland to the republic.

deiseach

So the Brits are trying to get shot of the subsidy-sucking areas of the North. Then why stop there? Why not get shot of all six? The amount Northern Ireland receives in subsidies from the UK Treasury varies according to the source but here are a few figures to demonstrate the point that I'll eventually get to:

• "The subvention from Britain to Northern Ireland was £3,340 million in 1995-96. The subvention represents the shortfall between the total amount of money that is raised in Northern Ireland, mainly in taxation, and the total amount spent in the region, mainly on public services and security" (Source: CAIN)
  
• Government borrowing in 1993-4 in the UK was £59,400 million (Source: www.politics.co.uk)

So in the mid-90's, the amount Northern Ireland received over and above its contribution to the Treasury was less than 10% (at a stretch) of what the UK as a whole borrowed to balance the books. Remove NI from those figures and the deficit plummets to £56,040 million.

Northern Ireland is about as irritating to the UK taxpayer as a flea is to an elephant's arse.

jrey1981

Perhaps they should stop propping up Scotland and Wales as well...!

Richard

dr zoidberg wrote:

Is Derry actually called Londonderry :eek: ?

In terms of the official name of the city - yes.

In terms of the offical name of the council - no - not for the last 20 years.

Capt'n Midnight

Bloodychancer wrote:

If the Brits wont take them perhaps we could build camps for them while we figure out a "Final Solution".

Surely you mean a Fingal Solution. Dublin dumps DNS*

*De North Side

BTW: Stroke City is on the Foyle.

Hotblack Desiato

deiseach wrote:

So in the mid-90's, the amount Northern Ireland received over and above its contribution to the Treasury was less than 10% (at a stretch) of what the UK as a whole borrowed to balance the books.

The problem is that according to those figures, about 2% of the UK population is responsible for approx 10% of the national deficit. I think that fits the definition of subsidy sucker pretty well...

deiseach

ninja900 wrote:

The problem is that according to those figures, about 2% of the UK population is responsible for approx 10% of the national deficit. I think that fits the definition of subsidy sucker pretty well...

It's probably even more than 10%. The budget deficit I quoted was an extraordinarily high figure. It's been nowhere near that in the years since.

But whether they are 'subsidy suckers' or not is not the issue. The issue is whether the Brits would be sufficiently moved by the 'problem' to divest themselves of half (and only half) of the North. If they decided to get shot of the most costly areas of NI, Belfast would surely go since Belfast contains the most subsidy suckers up there. And if the people who prop up the rest of the UK were really motivated by the trauma of subsidy sucking, Scotland, Wales and everywhere in England north of the Watford Gap are net recepients of Treasury largesse. They could save maybe a billion by getting shot of the dreary spires of Fermanagh and Tyrone. They could save tens of billions by spinning off the independent Republic of Mancpool.

Somehow though, I don't see it happening.

samb

Wilson was contempating the repartition of NI in the early seventies sometime wasn't he? I know it would have been hassle but I think it might have made the last thirty years a lot better.

If only the North would sign up to Independance that couldn't be changed unless say 70% of the population agreed. Then they would have to live together and no side could feel too agrieved at the other, as niether would have achieved their goal... I suppose this is why I have never heard this proposal, it makes neither side happy but the rest of us.