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

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.