blanch152 wrote: » Before the British, we were a disorganised rabble of separate "kingdoms".
facehugger99 wrote: » Irish people (in the Republic) might play lip service to a general aspirational hankering for unification, but as an electorate, we have consistently resisted the notion of paying additional taxes. The first mention of a 'Unification Tax' and the idea will be quietly parked (probably for 20 years). While it might be something that people want, they certainly don't want it enough to have to pay for it or anything. Any support for the notion, is, has been and will continue to be super-soft. The truth is that the current arrangement suits us perfectly. Let the Brits deal with policing and paying for the dysfunctional headache of NI.
Berserker wrote: » Not correct. Think you'll find that a certain vote occurred on the matter. It's often skipped in Irish history lessons. Doesn't fit in with the victim sob story, I suppose.
NI doesn't cost us 9-10-11-12 billion at the moment. As I said above, taking it on would cost more. That's just the base cost. I'm not including policing etc in that. I see that the UK is going to buy Brazilian beef after Brexit. The first of many blows to the Irish economy. Will be interesting to see how the EU digs you guys out of that hole. That's 50% of Irish exports that need a new home.
Matt Barrett wrote: » The current arrangement suits the cynical me feiners. Tax won't even be an issue for the vast majority. As I said, if we were forced to take worse for private concerns we'll take markedly less for the greater good of the island and Irish nationality and deal with what comes of it. You don't cancel on family because the bill might be inconvenient. We could imagine a Fine Gael minister made a financial gaffe, which he or she isn't responsible for, and write any costs off. 'Unification cost a small fortune, my bad'. And give him/her full confidence
blanch152 wrote: » The UK cancelled on the EU family for 350k a week for the NHS. It would be naive to think people on this island are any different.
Berserker wrote: » It was never put upon them. Ireland opted to join the UK and the RoI decided to break away from the rest of the UK after that.
facehugger99 wrote: » We won't choose to. Not a chance.
facehugger99 wrote: » Irish people (in the Republic) might play lip service to a general aspirational hankering for unification, but as an electorate, we have consistently resisted the notion of paying additional taxes . . . .
Mehapoy wrote: » Surely, after the brexit headaches of the last few years and ongoing into the future, the last thing ireland/uk 'these islands' needs is a divisive and destabilising unification vote. By all means create a 'new ireland forum 2.0' -unionists will boycott, to discuss a framework for the next 50 years but its not going to be something that will come up in the next 10 years at least.
Peregrinus wrote: » This is the kind of thing that's in the remote future for a long time, and then when it happens it happens quite fast. Less than three years passed between Reagan's "tear down this wall!" speech in Berlin in 1988, at which point nobody envisaged German reunification as imminent, and actual reunion. What changed, of course, was the external context - glasnost, perestroika, the Soviet coup, the collapse of the Soviet Union. We don't envisage similarly dramatic changes in the context that effects Northern Ireland but, then, we wouldn't, would we? It's in the nature of surprising developments that they take you by surprise. But if a crash-out Brexit does lead to the splintering of the UK, which is not impossible, then, yeah, NI's future will be very much in play all of a sudden, and things could move quite fast.
facehugger99 wrote: » German reunification was nothing like the situation in UI.
facehugger99 wrote: » They're also still paying for it 30 years later FYI.;)
facehugger99 wrote: » Reunification tax? - No thanks.
Peregrinus wrote: » We are different. We consistently whinge about higher taxes, but we consistently vote for the parties that impose them, which is why we have taxes that are higher than in the UK. We do this for the very good reason that, though we dislike high taxes, there are other things we dislike even more. By their deeds ye shall know them. This notino that we will automatically reject any policy that will cost taxpayers money is simply not borne out by the easily-observed evidence.
blanch152 wrote: » In the scale of things, we don't vote for the parties that will raise taxes the most - the likes of PBP and the other fringe left never get significant votes. You may well be right, a lot of turkeys vote for Christmas, but that doesn't mean it is the best choice.
oscarBravo wrote: » I have no objection to a united Ireland in principle. What worries me is the prospect of rushing into a UI in a Brexit-like fashion - "it will be wonderful, and anyone saying otherwise is just peddling Project Fear". The point has been well-made on this forum that we are better at referendums than the UK, because we have a deliberative process by which we work out the details of how something will work before we seek the permission of the people to implement it. We need to keep doing that. I don't want to see competing slogans shouting that it will cost us money, or that it will save us money. I want to see a costed plan. Will we pay Irish social welfare rates to Northern Ireland residents? Will we achieve cost savings by firing most of the existing civil service up north? These and hundreds of similar questions need to be answered before we're asked to vote.
Peregrinus wrote: » I see where you're coming from, but the approach is a bit simplistic, maybe. As just pointed out, partition has its costs too, and these are about to rise with Brexit (and will rise sharply if there's a crash-out Brexit). You might wish there to be a cost-free option, but it doesn't necessarily follow that there will be. That's Brexiter thinking!
facehugger99 wrote: » That's nonsensical argument. The 'cost' of Brexit to the Republic (which is an unknown) would be €10 billion a year worse if we're trying to fund reunification at the same time. Brexit and the cost of same, is an argument against reunification, not for it.
"Taking the above adjustments and savings into account the cumulative figure is £8.5 billion. With the reported deficit for Northern Ireland is at £9.2 billion therefore the current income and expenditure figure for Northern Ireland, the report concludes comes near a balanced budget in a reunification scenario. This is of course, before taking into account the likely potential for growth in Northern Ireland following unification as happened in East Germany following its reunification"
Dytalus wrote: » A recently released report indicates that hard brexit could cost us to the tune of €42.5 billion over 7 years. That same report shows that over that same 7 years, unification would result in significantly better results than either a hard or soft brexit.Another report (yet to be released fully by the DFA - they're probably holding off to avoid impacting Brexit negotiations, but there's been no statement yet) indicates the cost of NI subvention wouldn't be as high as it currently is. A lot of its expenses wouldn't need to be taken up by the Republic, as they're based on NI being part of the UK. There's no clear view of what the true cost of a unified Ireland would be just yet, and the most recent publically available report I can find seems to indicate that after a rocky start, re-unification would be a net benefit to the island of Ireland economically. Obviously, though, we'd need consensus and hard numbers before ever putting forward a referendum (the Republic tends to be pretty good at getting all the details in order before putting them to the public). Will Ireland take up the costs of public sector pensions, or would they still fall under the purview of the UK who is currently paying them? Until that's decided, we can't know how much savings would be made on pensions. Until an agreement is made on what will happen to NI's enormous amount of public sector workers (which account for 11.4% of the working population, compared with Ireland's 8.4%), and whether Stormont will remain or be merged with the Dáil we can't know the cost of that either - will it be higher or lower or unchanged? There's too much possible variance in outcomes, so it's impossible to say with certainty which option is better just yet. Outright saying "no" is just as shortsighted as outright saying "yes".
blanch152 wrote: » The KLC Consultants report is the one paid for by the Friends of Sinn Fein which has been repeatedly debunked. The Thurmann report is unpublished. Selective extracts that promise savings while apparently hiding behind large scale redundancies don't wash in reality. If that is the plan, it won't pass in the North.
blanch152 wrote: » The KLC Consultants report is the one paid for by the Friends of Sinn Fein which has been repeatedly debunked.
blanch152 wrote: » The Thurmann report is unpublished. Selective extracts that promise savings while apparently hiding behind large scale redundancies don't wash in reality. If that is the plan, it won't pass in the North.
Will Ireland take up the costs of public sector pensions, or would they still fall under the purview of the UK who is currently paying them? Until that's decided, we can't know how much savings would be made on pensions. Until an agreement is made on what will happen to NI's enormous amount of public sector workers (which account for 11.4% of the working population, compared with Ireland's 8.4%), and whether Stormont will remain or be merged with the Dáil we can't know the cost of that either - will it be higher or lower or unchanged? There's too much possible variance in outcomes, so it's impossible to say with certainty which option is better just yet. Outright saying "no" is just as shortsighted as outright saying "yes".
Dytalus wrote: » We don't know. Anyone saying otherwise ("We know it's a bad/good idea") in this thread, one way or the other with any kind of concrete statement, is probably doing so based on a whole load of their own personal beliefs and opinions.
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