Is it just me or have SF vanished?

Bishop of hope wrote: »

I doubt it, the struggle is ongoing, just without guns and daily bombings.
Neither side can sit and look the other in the face without looking for an assault or a way to put the other down.
They can't even agree to sit down together without a brokered deal and forced acceptance of each other.
If you took the British and Irish political guile out of NI you'd be sitting on a daily we do this you do that, with no govt formation capable of running a state of any description.
There is relative peace, but the funeral and the 12th will show the pomposity of both sides up and the utter contempt they have for the other.

Bishop of hope wrote: »

By gum, he's hit the nail on the head.:D

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/malachi-odoherty/imagined-sinn-feins-handbook-for-trolls-dont-argue-just-insult-and-never-ever-say-youre-sorry-39343848.html

Osamabumdipper wrote: »

very interesting thread this. Predictable the way its gone.

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Obviously by design as is always with Provo/SF threads. Keep em going for as long as you can, multiple threads keeping SF and the IRA high profile. The usual suspects led by Uncle Tom with his wing commander Francis grinding out the narrative along with commander Ziggy Stardust & a selection of foot "soldiers"

So predictable.

Bowie wrote: »

Look at the quality of your input here. Bratty snide remarks.
You keep posting ****e theres people will dispute it. Pretty simple. You don't need to be pro SF or pro IRA to call out FG jibber-jabber based on the fear the electorate are finally on to yis

efanton wrote: »

The problem is when faced with the reality that your world view is false, its easier to make false accusations, deny truths and promote a your warped view rather than address the issue directly.

A United Ireland is perfectly possible within the next 10 to 15 years.

The arguments that we could not afford it have been shown to not hold water.

The arguments that the UK would never relinquish control of northern Ireland is stupid, they would sell out the Unionists in a heart beat as they already have over BREXIT, because it was politically expedient and financially beneficial to the UK mainland. It is only a matter of time before the nationalist population exceed that of the unionists and both the the British government and the Unionists are well aware of that.

Larger and larger numbers of protestants in northern Ireland are becoming more ambivalent to a united Ireland. They have little or no say in Westminster but in a untied Ireland I dare say they could be guaranteed at least 15 seats (possibly 20+ if the number of seats in the Dail increased to cater for a larger population) in the Dail which effectively would put them in a position of being the fourth biggest party and likely to be part of a government within a decade.

With a United Ireland the North would not be avoided by multinationals as a base of operation because the perceived view by multinational and big business that it is still a world trouble spot will quickly fade away. In fact with low property values, a large workforce available for work and no doubt the many schemes financed by the EU and Irish government immediately after unification, along with the USA no doubt wanting to have its finger in the pie as well would make it very attractive to businesses. Most protestants in the North are not so blinded by some of their political leaders fervour not to see that.

In fact if I was a FG supporter I would be looking for unification as soon as possible, because the Unionists would be the ideal coalition partners (sharing a a similar conservative outlook), and it is likely that FG will never again get a majority large enough to go into government solo, or only needing a handful of extra seats. In fact FG and the Unionist parties could consider a merger of sorts and FG could then legitimately use their official title Fine Gael, The United Ireland Party.

efanton wrote: »

have always found this site to be accurate with regards UK and Northern Ireland spending. very useful as you change choose what to display on the charts
https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2020NIbn_17bc1n#ukgs302

Th subvention of 9.5 billion that the British government pays (yes it is 9.5 billion not the 12 billion that many tout), actually includes an awful lot of expenses that would not be relevant if Unification happened.


That subvention of 9.5 billion also includes running a totally separate devolved government a significant cost that will be redundant or significantly reduced when departments are absorbed by departments here. At the moment this accounts for 430 million of the total spending in Northern Ireland.

Pensions cost 6.9 billion a year, but that's an interesting issue?
Obviously the British government have been collecting pension contributions and putting that into their National fund. I would assume that if a United Ireland did happen, those contributions would be transferred to the Irish government.
What that could end resulting in is the Irish government getting a huge lump sum that would significant pay towards any transitional costs of an United Ireland. obviously that money would have to be replaced, but it would allow our government to spread any cost of a United Ireland over a longer period than the time it takes for a transition.
Alternatively the British government would repay those contributions yearly or over a phased period. I would imagine no Chancellor in Westminster would be happy with a bill amounting to billions of pounds, but at the same time the Irish government would be keen to be managing those pension reserves themselves for best returns. We dont know what will happen but if it was a single lump sum that would make a United Ireland far easier to take on as there would be some ability to defer costs somewhat
But if the UK insists on continuing to pay existing pensions that's a huge reduction of the deficit or costs of absorbing Northern Ireland

Currently, Northern Ireland’s share of the UK’s defence budget, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and similar items is around €1.5bn. Now ZERO of that appears in Northern Ireland's spending budgets. BUT it does very much appear in UK subvention or the 9.5 billion deficit.
Straight away the 9.5 billion has now reduced significantly to somewhere around €8 billion


equalising the vat rate (Ireland currently 23% UK currently 20%) would bring in an additional dividend. total dividend unknown to me as no published figure that I could find were specific to Northern Ireland consumer spending or tax revenue.
Even so this would be a pretty substantial amount
For comparison Republic of Ireland collected a total of 17.9 billion VAT in 2017

Also as part of accounting practice, "Consumption of fixed capital”, or 'depreciation of government assets' to put it into plain language, is currently 2 billion of that 9.5 billion subvention. The last value I could find (2016). To put that into context the Irish government last year stated that their "Consumption of fixed capital” for the republic of Ireland was 3.7 billion. Now that 2 billion depreciation seems inordinately high when the two are compared especially when the population of the republic is considerably greater, it likely that that has been used to some degree as an accounting fudge. As part of a transfer from the UK to Ireland that 2 billion will almost certainly be reduced and many of those assets sold off either before unification by the UK or after. There could easily be 500 million of a reduction there.

When the EU partially funded the German unification it amounted to about 3% of GDP for entirety of the EC (the EU came later with Maastricht). I found it extremely hard to dig out real figures for this as being this was agreed in the period of the EC there appears to be no relevant document on the EU portal, but the 3% figure is fairly certain as it was mentioned by the then current German Chancellor and other EC ministers in many newspaper interviews. (im afraid you will have to google that for yourself I didnt save the links).
What I found shocking was that the EU gave so much to Germany.
GDP for the EU in 1990 $7.6 trillion (dollars, figures from world bank). @ 3% that equates to total EU funding for Germany unification in 1980 of $228 billion (again dollars, sorry. Would be great to get accurate figures in euros and a proper break down supplied by EU but I haven't found it.)
That is an absolutely staggering amount of money. I know Germany has a extremely large economy now (approx $3.8 trillion at present, dollars again), and has a very large population, but even so.

My point here is it appears the EU have given extremely significant aid in a previous Unification process. Far more than any one of us might expect, certainly way way more than I expected.
I'm not suggesting for one minute that we would get a deal that came to even a tiny fraction of that, but a tiny fraction would still be very very significant.

Anyhow let stick to solid figures.
Already with fairly solid and reasoned figures It appears that the 9.5 billion subvention the UK currently pays would very realistically fall below 7.5 billion if the costs that would not apply or be relevant in a united Ireland were removed and that doesn't even take into account the pensions issue. If the UK insists on continuing to pay for them rather than hand over huge pensions reserves there's yet another 6 billion per year right there.
If they wipe their hands of the whole matter then our government would be looking at a huge pension reserve fund. They couldn't spend it but they certainly could prudently borrow from it to extend the costs on unification.
Either way the pensions costs are more or less deductible from the deficit for a number of years or until that pension reserve fund runs out. Remove the 6 billion from the 7.5 billion and we are now down to 1.5 billion.


With the pension reserve issue, and other savings and a bit of aid from the EU a United Ireland could become reasonably affordable.

The numbers are all there if you don't believe me. Everything number I have posted is publicly available. The simple truth is the scaremongering about the cost of a United Ireland is simply that scaremongering.

It took me a lot of time and effort to go through that process of gathering all those figure a couple of months back. I myself was shocked at how little it would cost us in the event of a United Ireland. The truth is if we want a United Ireland it more or less pays for itself.



Basic Breakdown

9.5 billion subvention
- 6.9 billion pensions
- 1.5 billion Northern Ireland share of the UK's defense and overseas spending.
- 0.5 billion VAT equalisation
- other taxes collected in Northern Ireland but not returned through subvention

efanton wrote: »

No need to go grab song books.
The link for the UK government spending for northern Ireland is there. All the numbers I have used are directly from the UK government.
The only estimate I made was regarding income tax and VAT receipts but being the British government does not publish them for Northern Ireland if anything I deliberately underestimated what effect that might have.

Maybe its the tune SF are singing because it happens to be the truth. The true cost doesn't vary, no matter which party uses those facts or what your political affiliation might be.
Are you contesting any of those figure?

Every number I have give is easily verifiable in google if you cared to spend a minute or two, or from the link I have supplied.

And seriously, do you, I , or anyone else care whether SF are saying the same thing as I am saying.
I have not read this so called SF song book, nor the link you provided, I went searching and looking trying to work out how there could so so many different estimates for the cost of a United Ireland, and actually get down to the true solid facts, not conjecture, not propaganda nor biased rhetoric from any political party or sectarian view.

As an Irishman I would like to see a United Ireland in my lifetime. Are you saying you would not?

Or are you saying you are against it simply because that would be contrary to SF? If that's the case you are one sad individual.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

No links, no back-up, just the usual biased finger in the wind...guessing.
Efanton has put some work into it to back up his/her points, at least respond in kind.

Bishop of hope wrote: »

I'm having a discussion and giving my knowledge of what I know.
He has outlined figures from a site but with no back up link to show somebody else coming up with them, the only one I could find backing his assertion was Pearse Doherty.
Northern Ireland deficit has decreased slightly in the last few years, but that's not due to any significant economic upturn, that's due to austerity, spending cuts, and its still around the 10 million sterling or so per year.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

If the best you can do is repudiate figures because a shinner used them, you anti UI campaign is sunk. 'Must do better' as all the best teachers say.

Bishop of hope wrote: »

No.
You assumed the subsuming of departments from NI into ours would make huge savings and that everything economically would automatically grow to suit the narrative that a UI is a safe and good place to do business.
That need not necessarily correspond as the level of education North of the border is not strong enough to support the theory of high end jobs being of any benefit to the population of NI, so it would be at least a generation until that brought any benefit.
Furthermore civil servants are bloody impossible to get rid of.
Take that and the difference is social welfare payments which would have to increase in the north to match ours that's more money down the swanny.
There are to many implausables to say for certain exactly how much it would cost the Irish exchequer in the short term, but enough certainty to know for sure it would be in the billions in double figures at least per year.

efanton wrote: »

I dont see your argument at all.

Will there be a cost in social welfare? I'm pretty certain we could both agree that would be true.
But we are talking about social welfare payments and not pensions. Even so it would be a significant additional cost, probably well north of a billion or so a year.

So lets assume the number I gave were solid, (that would be a very safe assumption as they were direct from the British government, not SF, FG, FF or any other party). Essentially the basic numbers makes a United Ireland close to a break even exercise.

But on top of that we have to add the substantial additional welfare payments, the cost of merging government departments, of not so obvious costs such as road signage, schools, policing, healthcare etc etc.
Now those will without doubt add up to billions of Euros and there is no point trying to paint over that.

However the only immediate costs in the first year or so would be the social welfare, and similar payments.
The cost of merging government departments etc would obviously be over many years, probably close to decade. It will take that long for the planning and implementation to actually happen anyhow. I dare say much of that will be funded by the EU, UK and other aid programs. That's not to say that Ireland would not have to invest heavily as well.

On balance though the arguments some have made that its simply not viable simply do not hold water. Anyone who thinks we will get the six counties for free is also missing the point, or being totally naive.

There will be a cost, into the billions, but it is a cost that this country could easily afford especially if that cost is spread over a period of a decade or so.
There is also the potential for significant economic benefit too which will go some way to offset that cost.