blanch152 wrote: » How can it be hypocritical of me to criticise the cost overruns on the Children's Hospital but also criticise the cost of unification? That is a bizarre accusation, especially when I am bemoaning the cost to other capital projects of diverting money to the hospital project. I am accepting that if one particular thing costs money or extra money, something else somewhere else in the system has to lose out. That is the complete opposite of magic money tree thinking. Because the costs of unification are infinitely higher than the cost overrun of the Children's Hospital - even if we accept the lower estimations, it is the equivalent of one Children's Hospital overrun every year - we really need to apply a bigger critical eye on the costs of unification than on the costs of the Children's Hospital. After all, the critical failure in relation to the Children's Hospital was walking into a scenario where the full costs had not been examined and were not known. The lesson to be learned from the Children's Hospital fiasco is that the State should not take on a cost without being sure how much it actually will cost. That is more than true of something which will be at least one Children's Hospital every year, but could actually be 10 or 12 Children's hospitals every year. My point about the magic money tree and hypocrisy in criticising the Children's Hospital (as posters have done on this and other threads) but dismissing unification costs (as the same posters have done in this thread) absolutely stands.
Imreoir2 wrote: » I am going to have to ask you to back up this claim. Can you point out a poster in this thread claiming that unification would have no cost, or that the potential costs should not be examined. You really need to be able to back up these claims, if you cannot you should refrain from making them.
Matt Barrett wrote: » I don't think so. We took much worse for far less. You may recall the bail outs, taking one for the team and 'practically eating out of bins'. This would likely be far less of a financial burden to bear
blanch152 wrote: » Well here is one that dismisses the cost as something not to be bothered about.
blanch152 wrote: » Edit: And to make my main point, posters up in arms about the Children's Hospital should, if they are consistent, be extremely concerned about the exponentially greater costs of unification.
murphaph wrote: » Yeah and he said it was coming soon. Neither of us can actually know when it's coming so nobody can say the other is factually incorrect as we are in the realm of prediction. I'm tired of these semantics now. You know where I stand.
Johnny Dogs wrote: » Where? On the contrary, you made a statement, I corrected you. No point trying to rewrite history.
Imreoir2 wrote: » I don't think that is what the poster did, there is a difference between dismissing something and putting it in context. It is true that the recession back in 2008 led to a greater burdern on the Irish state than Unification would.
murphaph wrote: » Indeed. A border poll called because nationalists have 50% +1 of the votes in a general or assembly election almost certainly does not mean a vote to end partition. There are far too many (disproportionately so iirc) small n nationalists working in public sector jobs for that to happen. I'm 40 by the way. I stand by my belief that absent a hard Brexit there will be no poll and certainly no UI in my lifetime but with a hard Brexit the exact opposite and probably in a fairly short timeframe.
Charles Babbage wrote: » This is too black and white. Brexit shows the limitations of British rule and it isn't over yet. The British are unlikely to entirely settle down and some version of the backstop might yet come into existence. Any surplus of public servants in the 6 ccounties might not be as great when the British economy slows down and those who remain will note that their counterparts in the south earn a lot more. A nationalist majority, or even plurality, simply isn't stable given the lack of interest by the British in NI. The best plan is to use a backstop type mechanism to try and improve the private sector in NI so that the economic gap is not too large. we now see that two thirds of NI favour that.
blanch152 wrote: » https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2017/1023/914665-46-7-billion/ Total cost of 45bn as opposed to a 15bn cost for 20 or 30 years. Unification makes even the bank bailout look cheap.
Imreoir2 wrote: » If you want to claim that unification would cost 15bn a year for 20 or 30 years, you really really need to back that claim up. Do you have a single shred of evidence to back that up?
facehugger99 wrote: » It's really up to the proponents of unification to set out the costs. .
Johnny Dogs wrote: » This is a new revelation to me, because as long as I've been a member of the site, it's been a long standing tradition, indeed unwritten rule that those making a claim have been asked to back up a claim they have made with a source when challenged. You appear to want to now discard this, in favour of leaving any facts and figures to let sit as fact unless those questioning the claims (no matter how far fetched they might sound) For some bizarre reason I'm now picturing a scene from a movie with Dr Evil holding his pinky to his mouth shouting one hundred billion dollars guffawing into the camera.
facehugger99 wrote: » There's only one relevant figure at the moment - €0. That's the cost of not taking on NI. Anyone proposing a change to the current arrangement needs to set out a costed plan. It's quite a simple and widely accepted practice.
blanch152 wrote: If the proponents of unification can convince everyone that there is no cost only benefit (ala Brexit), then it will pass.
facehugger99 wrote: » It's really up to the proponents of unification to set out the costs. Given the size of the current subvention and the increased security costs, €15bn a year sounds a reasonable starting point to me. If you have some better figures you'd like to present, by all means go ahead.
facehugger99 wrote: » There's only one relevant figure at the moment - €0. That's the cost of not taking on NI.Anyone proposing a change to the current arrangement needs to set out a costed plan. It's quite a simple and widely accepted practice.
Matt Barrett wrote: » Is it? It's others like yourself making specific claims. Anyone looking at it logically, has to admit, we don't know. There are many variables. Trying to put a price on it is merely guess work based of ifs.
facehugger99 wrote: » Strange you would want to proceed with something if you don't know what the cost of it is going to be. I'd suggest that anyone who will be called upon to pay for it (i.e. the same band of PAYE workers who pay for everything else in this country) will not have that kind of blasé attitude.
Matt Barrett wrote: » No, blasé would be not caring about the financials. Again, to be clear, there will be a price to pay. I am willing to pay it.
Matt Barrett wrote: » . Again, to be clear, there will be a price to pay. I am willing to pay it.
facehugger99 wrote: » Eh? - That's literally the definition of not caring about the financials. Anyway - your opinion is so far on the extreme of the spectrum that it can be safely disregarded - willing to pay any price (500 billion, 1,000 billion?) - the vast, vast majority of people won't look at it in this way.
Matt Barrett wrote: » No it's not. Not caring about the financials would be not caring about the financials. I disagree. I think you underestimate the average Irish person's willingness to support a united Ireland. Nobody is disregarding anything. You are misunderstanding the basic concept of wanting something and at the same time realising there's a price, being willing to pay it and preparing as best you can. In short plucking figures from the air is not an argument against something people are willing to pay for.
