[article]Northern Ireland's Economy and difficulties for future

Maskhadov

Comment: Alan Ruddock: Addicted to state subvention, north will suffer when it's gone
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-1975102_2,00.html

The contrasting fortunes north and south of the border have been put in stark relief over the past few weeks. In the republic, the government’s finances are in even better shape than expected, while the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) reports that last year was its best since 2000. Job creation is remarkably high (almost 100,000 new jobs were created in 2005); tax receipts are buoyant on the back of the continued booms in construction and consumer spending; and while there are medium-term concerns about the sustainability of the rate of economic growth, the immediate future looks secure.

In Northern Ireland, by contrast, the picture is grimmer. Peter Hain, the secretary of state, recently described its economy as “unsustainable” and suggested, to predictable outrage, that its future lies in being part of an “island of Ireland” economy.

It was a neat soundbite, one that was guaranteed to appeal to nationalists and to appal unionists, who predictably spotted yet another political plot to do them down. Hain’s comments were, however, much more disingenuous than that. He knows that Gordon Brown, the chancellor, will not countenance fiscal or monetary independence for Northern Ireland. Under no circumstances will he allow Northern Ireland to set a corporate tax rate to compete with the republic, or even to align its Vat rates to Irish standards. And suggestions that he might allow Northern Ireland to join the euro are fanciful in the extreme. Any concession made to one part of Britain would be demanded by all the others: Scotland already looks enviously at the republic’s low corporate tax rate and romantically at the euro.

Northern Ireland is stuck with what it holds, so for Hain to talk of participation in an island of Ireland economy is nonsense, and he knows it. There is no island economy, and cannot be while two separate tax, legal and currency regimes exist. There is undoubtedly opportunity for greater trade between north and south, but businessmen both sides of the border know that, and pursue opportunities where they see them.

Since Hain’s prescription holds no water, his diagnosis is particularly troubling. If Northern Ireland’s economy is unsustainable, and if there is no easy fix by blending with an island economy, then what is to happen?

Undoubtedly, the economy is in trouble. It is alarmingly dependent on the British state, which is responsible for 63% of economic activity and directly employs a third of all workers. Its manufacturing industry, which was heavily reliant on the textile, clothing and ship-building industries, has shed 100,000 jobs in the past 35 years.

It has had some limited success in attracting foreign investment — about 100 American companies provide employment for some 23,000 people — but its achievements pale beside the success of the IDA, which has encouraged 1,000 foreign companies to provide employment in the republic for 130,000 people.

Northern Ireland’s economic statistics, which show reasonable growth and low unemployment, mask a host of problems. State spending, which is now under severe threat from Brown’s belt-tightening regime, is the main driver of the economy. Unemployment figures do not show the true level of economic inactivity in the north, where the number of people claiming incapacity benefit is 74% above the UK average. Neither do they chart the scale of the province’s brain drain. Because the number of university places is capped, more than a third of school- leavers attend university in the UK, and half of them never return.

The British subvention runs at a net £5 billion (€7.4 billion) a year, yet, for all the money, the quality of services falls below UK standards. Northern Ireland’s health service receives 9% more per head of population than the UK average, but its waiting lists are longer and productivity is lower.

Its education system is renowned for its success in delivering university students, yet 24% of the working population has no qualifications whatsoever.

The biggest problem, though, is the scale of the state’s involvement in the local economy, which runs at about double the equivalent rate for the republic. It is a pressing problem because Brown’s stewardship of the British economy — marked by a profligate tax and spend policy — has run its course.

British growth is slowing, its tax revenues contracting and its options are limited. Brown has to rein back spending where nobody either notices or cares, and from a Westminster standpoint, Northern Ireland qualifies on both counts. Spending will be cut, jobs will be lost, and whatever savings accrue in time from lower security bills will be snaffled by the Treasury, and not returned to the province.

Unless the local business community takes up the economic slack with alacrity, the deflationary pressures on the economy will be severe. And therein lies another problem: years of state dependency have robbed Northern Ireland of entrepreneurialism. It lags far behind the republic and the UK, with proportionately half the number of young entrepreneurs. Businesses have to compete with the state for employees, yet struggle to match the wages and job security that the state can offer, not to mention the pensions. That feeds through into the choices made by students and the courses offered by universities: why chase a high-tech degree if your guaranteed future lies as a bureaucrat?

Into this sclerotic, state-dominated, economy Hain hopes to attract a new wave of foreign investors, who will be asked to choose Northern Ireland over cheaper accession countries, far cheaper Asian countries and the republic’s low-tax regime. In its favour it can offer grants, but so can the rest of the UK regions, and it can offer a relatively well-educated, English-speaking workforce, as can the republic.

It can highlight a few success stories, such as Seagate, an American firm that employs more than 2,000 people in two plants and which has created world-beating standards of quality and productivity in a highly demanding industry. Yet the republic can point to highly developed clusters of high-tech companies, including the world’s best-known brands such as Intel, Microsoft, Google and Dell. The reality is that the inward investment boom has passed by Northern Ireland.

The world is now a far more competitive place than it was in 1998, when the Good Friday agreement was signed. Back then, buoyed by international goodwill and a genuine feelgood factor, Northern Ireland could have extracted concessions from the British and the European Union that might have proved the catalyst for a mini-boom. But the opportunity was lost. Since then the province’s politicians have engaged in mind-numbingly rancorous politics. Its communities have become more, rather than less, polarised, and the economy has been left to wither.

Sinn Fein struggles with the concept of democracy, plays fast and loose with decommissioning, indulges in espionage and deceit, and forgets that its posturing eats away at the economic prospects of its people. Unionism sees plots and conspiracies at every turn, struggles to embrace cross-border initiatives and devotes none of its energies to tackling what is threatening to become a genuine crisis.

And all the while the republic ticks along, creating jobs and enjoying a prosperity that was once beyond its dreams. In 1970, Northern Ireland enjoyed a standard of living and an economic output that exceeded the republic’s by almost a third. Now it lags behind, and the gap grows daily.

Where the fault lies no longer matters: Northern Ireland’s economy is unsustainable because the British exchequer no longer has the interest or the resources to maintain it in the style, however faded, to which it has become accustomed. The province’s politicians, who draw a salary for doing diddlysquat, need to wake up to their crisis, resolve their contrived differences, and get on with the serious business of providing leadership and direction.

Northern Ireland has to wean itself away from state dependency, and that requires a combination of entrepreneurialism and political realism. Republicans must realise that those in the republic who yearn for unity would prefer a successful Northern Ireland that does not require huge state subvention. Unionism must accept that cross-border co-operation on every possible economic level is essential to its prosperity. Without realism the impasse will remain and the province’s economy will founder.

I havent a clue how anyone is going to fix the problems up the north. But there is an awful lot of problems to fix econmically.

mike65

True, while the unemployment rate in NI is now very low, with a third of the economy being funded by the public purse the reality is pretty grim really as NI is viewed as less of a "special needs" location pressure will build within the Treasury to cut funding.

Mike.

zuma

cormacs wrote:

considering that the six counties were designed to be unsubstanable, why is this such a surprise?

It will always rely on another country .. thats the problem with it, and thats why the island of ireland logically, at some stage of the game, has to be re-united.

Ahhhh..............no again!!!

A Dub in Glasgo

NI is not a state that is sustainable. In it's present form, it will always require taxpayers money to prop it up. Taxpayers are asking why should they prop it up.

murphaph

To the folks who've come out with the old chestnut "NI was designed to fail" I would ask you to re-read the piece. NI had a far higher standard of living than us for a long time but they failed to respond adequately when they started to lose their heavy industries. They didn't always rely on a british taxpayer handout. They are screwed now though and it's mostly because of their stubborn nature IMO and it is going to get worse if the politicians don't get the assembly up and running again asap as there's no votes for Labour/Conservatives in NI so no british government will ever really care so long as there's no bombs on the mainland. That's the harsh reality of it.

Flex

murphaph wrote:

They are screwed now though and it's mostly because of their stubborn nature IMO and it is going to get worse if the politicians don't get the assembly up and running again asap as there's no votes for Labour/Conservatives in NI so no british government will ever really care so long as there's no bombs on the mainland. That's the harsh reality of it.

What mainland? Europe?

samb

Flex wrote:

What mainland? Europe?

He clearly meant mainland Britian. No more bombs in mainland Britian is a priorty for British polititians, which is fair enough.

A Dub in Glasgo

murphaph wrote:

To the folks who've come out with the old chestnut "NI was designed to fail" I would ask you to re-read the piece.

Yep, I have re read it and NI was never sustainable without taxpayers money.

NI had a far higher standard of living than us for a long time but they failed to respond adequately when they started to lose their heavy industries.

Having a higher standard of living would not have been hard. Hell, some would argue they still have a higher standard of living.

They didn't always rely on a british taxpayer handout.

They done their own repression and discrimination to ensure 'they' had the jobs

They are screwed now though and it's mostly because of their stubborn nature IMO and it is going to get worse if the politicians don't get the assembly up and running again asap as there's no votes for Labour/Conservatives in NI so no british government will ever really care so long as there's no bombs on the mainland. That's the harsh reality of it.

No bombs in Britain is a more accurate description than the 'mainland'. Last 2 sentences sounds like the justification used to place bombs in Britian.

LordSutch

Amazing that the North is not worse off when you think about it!
The IRA/INLA bombed Belfast on a weekly basis for the best part of thirty years to the tune of Billions of Pounds (wasted) and lest face it, its only in the last ten/twelve years that the South has taken off, its not so long ago that we were the "Basket Case" of Europe, and were for Eighty years! I also remember in the late 70's the queues up-North to go shopping in Marks & Sparks - Sainsbury - C&A - etc, etc. Now its our turn to be flash with the cash, but for how long?

MrPudding

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

No bombs in Britain is a more accurate description than the 'mainland'.

When discussing NI I think it is valid to describle England, Scotland or Wales as the mainland. To me it is similar to an Islander describing the large piece of land separated from them by a section of water the mainland. What is the difference? Would someone on the Arran Islands not describe Ireland as the mainland?

MrP

murphaph

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Yep, I have re read it and NI was never sustainable without taxpayers money.

Rubbish. H&W and Shorts were just two of the huge wealth generators in Belfast when NI came into existance, as were the textile industries. We had none of this in the south and it's partially a failure to respond to changing global economics that has left NI in the sh!tter today. Clearly there are many reasons for this lack of a response and not having a direct government for 30 years is one of them.

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Having a higher standard of living would not have been hard. Hell, some would argue they still have a higher standard of living.

Your point?

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

No bombs in Britain is a more accurate description than the 'mainland'.

Seeing as we are talking about Northern Ireland, a constituent part of the United Kingdom then the mainland is exactly how the island of Britain should be refered to.

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Last 2 sentences sounds like the justification used to place bombs in Britian.

Nothing could justify blowing two small children to pieces in Warrington. Next time you're passing a cast iron litter bin, imagine what it would be like if it exploded and sent pieces of shrapnel through you. Perhaps instead of it justifying bombs on the mainland, it should encourage the polarised tribes in NI to vote for mainstream british parties so that their votes begin to count to Labour and The Conservative Party and they seek to actively represent them in Westminster.

Benedict XVI

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

No bombs in Britain is a more accurate description than the 'mainland'.

Ahh, in Board.ie as in real life the elements in a discussion about the North get bogged down in the use of words.

The North is a sick, sad, sorry place and I for one hope never to see it as part of the Republic of Ireland.

Nuttzz

on this topic

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/Articles/view.asp?CategoryID=-1&CategoryName=&ArticleID=314

his weekend, do you feel a bit fuller, fatter and tighter than you did two weeks ago? Are you having difficulty squeezing into that slinky dress that fitted like a glove just before Christmas?

What about yesterday's 16'‘ collar that suddenly feels like a noose?

Let's be honest, we're all feeling the flab post-Christmas. We've gorged that bit too much and are feeling a bit constrained.

Inflation is the economic equivalent of obesity, and conspicuously higher prices are its stretch marks. What are we to do?

Either we stop consuming so much - which is unlikely to happen - or we try to find other people who have some time on their hands to do some of our work, build some of our houses, sell us some of their land and generally take some of the strain.

It will be good for both of us. We will get a breather, and they will get the obvious fruits of economic growth, such as higher wages, more jobs, rising house prices and associated wealth. In short, they will get some of our money, and we will get some of their time. The relationship will be perfectly symbiotic. But where are these saviours to be found?

They have been staring us in the face for the past ten years. Have we seen them?

Have we heck! The solution to Ireland's economic dilemmas - like congestion, queues, rip-offs and not being able to find a good plumber - lies just up the road.

Northern Ireland is probably the greatest untapped economic resource on the island, but politics - or at least the incessant “whataboutery'‘ that passes for sectarian politics - has ensured that we cannot see this.

Anyone who spends any time in the North will realise the logic of an all-Ireland economy, not from the narrow triumphalist view of nationalist politics, but from the pure common sense of geography. Everything is cheaper in the North, and the place is on our doorstep. To understand why we could all benefit by sharing the Republic's ferocious economic appetite, it is important to establish why the North is so much cheaper.

The main reason prices have risen so fast here is because they could. Up North, there is a lot less money sloshing around, which in turn ensures that prices have not risen so rapidly.

This is a result of numerous factors.

First, the population structure is different.

Northern Ireland's baby boom peaked in 1970, ours in 1980. So the key spending component of the economy is ten years older in the North than here.

Second, those who are spending are spending less. The easy caricature to explain this is the image of the parsimonious Prod versus the feckless Fenian, but a much more telling explanation lies in economics.

We are spending more because our incomes are growing much more quickly.

Job creation has been dramatic - unlike the North where it has been average. This year, the Republic - with a population barely three and half times bigger than the North - will create nine times more jobs.

Without taking into account the usual 100,000 of us who will change jobs next year, the Republic will absorb 11,000 immigrants a month in 2006. This is more than the entire increase in employment forecast for the North for the whole of this year.

Wages in the Republic are substantially higher, not because we are nice to our workers, but because productivity here is significantly higher. This productivity gap is largely explained by multinational investment, which has driven the economy here but has been almost absent in the North. For example, 95 per cent of the increase in Irish exports came from new multinational investment, propelling this country forward in the 1990s. In the North, however, multinational investment actually fell in the 1990s.

Tellingly, this multinational investment gave a positive boost to local suppliers of these new firms, which reinforced the uplift in productivity. This process did not occur up North.

A third factor has been the wealth effect associated with house prices. Although house prices have been rising in the North, they have not been anywhere near the spiralling nonsense down south. The average cost of a house in the North is €153,000,while down here it is €271,000.

The wealth effect of this divergence, driven by equity releases, has amplified the amount of credit in the Republic's system, thus pushing house prices up further.

Finally, because the public service accounts for almost half of all employees in the North, as opposed to 18 per cent here, there is less dynamism and innovation in the workforce, and arguably a lack of risk-taking, which itself affects the overall feeling of economic sterility. This, again, is reinforced by figures published last year in the European Journal of Social and Regional Studies, showing that, proportionately, there are twice as many self-employed people in the Republic as there are in the North.

But the economic balance sheet is not game, set and match to the Republic by any means. The quality of life for many in Northern Ireland is extremely high, its infrastructure is first class and the new workforce is well-educated. Its economy has been growing strongly - by British standards. Daily life in the North is not dominated by relentless commuting, childcare problems and rip-off prices. Its telecom infrastructure is advanced, its road system is superb and its air links, particularly from Belfast's expanded airport, are excellent. Huge stretches of former industrial wastelands have been regenerated, and there is a real feeling that things are on the right track. Unemployment is low, even if the jobs do not pay particularly well, while investment and confidence is rising.

However, it is still suffering a brain drain to Britain - particularly by young middle-class Protestants - and, as Peter Hain stated quite obviously, the Northern economy is not sustainable in its present form. By this, he was referring to the annual subvention the North receives from the British exchequer.

To put this figure into an all-Ireland context, the North, with its much smaller population, gets more subsidies in anyone year from Britain than the Republic did from the EU throughout the entire 1990s.

At some stage, the North must at least make some moves towards self-reliance.

We can help them in this process and, in turn, they can ease some of our congestion problems.

Belfast is the closest city to Dublin on the island of Ireland. It is the only one that has sufficient mass to act as a counterweight to the capital. It has the people, and they need our types of jobs. By 2007, with the completion of the final stretch of the Dundalk-Newry motorway, it will be only two hours away by car.

Geography demands that we wake up to the resource that is the North. We should help them to agitate Westminster for corporate tax breaks like ours, so that they can compete properly. They should be part of our sales pitch, not least because as we get too expensive, cheaper workers and better infrastructure in the North will become part of our unique selling point.

Reading all the antediluvian stuff about the North in the 1975 government papers over the past few days, one can't help but feel that the best way to condemn that nonsense to history is indeed to join hands and jump together - in economics, if not in politics. They need us and we need them. Now that we can afford it, it is time for us to be both far-sighted and generous.

Sand

I dont see that we need them? We get cheap labour from immigration, so we dont need the North for that. So long as they leave their politics behind them they can happily move to Ireland themselves if need be.

And if theyre talking about land/property prices, unless your the government, relatively sane property prices can be found outside the Greater Dublin area, in places which are crying out for investment, having missed the initial boom. Investment in the north only benefits us indirectly, as opposed to investment in Ireland itself. And I certainly wouldnt want to place any of our eggs in Northern Irelands basket when you consider the sectarian ****e that passes for politics up there.

Northern Ireland is as sustainable as any other country living in a free-ish trade area. Their problems relate to the economic policy, or lack of it, that they have pursued. Local government wont help them though, given SFIRAs marxist economics - "collectivism, we *can* make it work!"

murphaph

McWilliams' piece is interesting. I can see a benefit for the south in the north doing well, but I wouldn't like to see it at the expense of jobs in the south. I think McWilliam's exaggerates the benefits of NI's infrastructure tbh. I recently drove to Antrim and the non primary roads are beginning to show the lack of maintenance. This is because the brits started curring back a good while ago now. The only thing that will get the tribes up there to work together is the financial rug being pulled from under them and SFIRA need to understand that we in the south won't even consider the north being incorporated into the south unless it's a productive place (personally I care not one iota for a united Ireland) to begin with. Imagine taking the tribal BS as well as an economi basket case. Britain wouldn't believe it's luck if we stood up to the plate to take NI off their hands.

murphaph

cormacs wrote:

ah, some of the responses in this thread are sick indeed.

Bcause they don't agree with your marxist utopian SF doctrine maybe?

cormacs wrote:

murphaph - read your history and learn. the north WAS created so it couoldnt survive on its own - that is fact. the industries you mention were almost exclusively loyalist run.

The north did survive on it's own for 50 years though. Does that drive you insanely mad that a bumch of protestants who stole your precious land were able to prosper here from 1922 until the troubles started? I bet it does. Maybe the industry was loyalist run because they were industrious people?!

cormacs wrote:

Im sure that (once again) I'll be banned

I'm sure you'll make a personal attack and that will happen soon enough.

cormacs wrote:

take a good long look at yourselves then throw up somewhere, please.

Oh, there it is! See ya.

Zebra3

murphaph wrote:

The north did survive on it's own for 50 years though. Does that drive you insanely mad that a bumch of protestants who stole your precious land were able to prosper here from 1922 until the troubles started? I bet it does. Maybe the industry was loyalist run because they were industrious people?!

Maybe the protestants prospered but they only made up 2/3 of the populations. How well off were the catholics living in the slums of Derry? How well off were the catholics of Belfast who were being burned out of their homes in the 20's? :mad:

NI was created at a time when Britain's raping and pillaging of, sorry I mean bringing civilisation to :rolleyes: , the world gave it (NI) a privledged position in the world economy. It obviously can't cope in a world dominated by the €, US$ and China. Prior to any IRA campaign, nobody in their right mind would ever wanted to have invested in a such a corrput, evil society which those in power (ie the unionists) were happy with. The IRA campaign no doubt hasn't helped attract inward investment, but no doubt catholics situation have improved and they have gained greater civil rights as a result and avoided being wiped out altogether.

Whether people like it or not, they are the facts.

murphaph

So Derry had slums, big deal-so did Dublin and Limerick and Cork, right up until recent enough times, so don't give me the bleeding heart stuff. There were poor people everywhere, Dublin, Derry, Belfast, Glasgow, Liverpool.......You attempt to imply that if it wasn't for the prods, the catholics would have all been top hat and monacle wearing, champagne swilling millionaires. It's rubbish. Yes, there were political inequalities and civil rights abuses in NI (which affected poor protestants too, though to a lesser extent) for a long time but the place was still self sufficient, didn't require a huge british subvention as it does now and didn't implode financially as had been anticipated in 1921.

NI is a comlex beast, intertwined with our own complex history, intertwined with britain's history and so on. It's rarely as simple as the republicans on here make out, though today's problems are quite simple and the past is largely irrelevant in dealing with them.

Maybe the protestants prospered but they only made up 2/3 of the populations. How well off were the catholics living in the slums of Derry? How well off were the catholics of Belfast who were being burned out of their homes in the 20's?

Just like the prods hounded out of towns like Bandon in the 20's then. We can play this blame game all day but if NI is to prosper, then it'll be people like me who can deal with 'themmuns' that'll be responsible for it.

Zebra3

murphaph wrote:

So Derry had slums, big deal-so did Dublin and Limerick and Cork, right up until recent enough times, so don't give me the bleeding heart stuff. There were poor people everywhere, Dublin, Derry, Belfast, Glasgow, Liverpool.......You attempt to imply that if it wasn't for the prods, the catholics would have all been top hat and monacle wearing, champagne swilling millionaires. It's rubbish. Yes, there were political inequalities and civil rights abuses in NI (which affected poor protestants too, though to a lesser extent) for a long time but the place was still self sufficient, didn't require a huge british subvention as it does now and didn't implode financially as had been anticipated in 1921.

NI is a comlex beast, intertwined with our own complex history, intertwined with britain's history and so on. It's rarely as simple as the republicans on here make out, though today's problems are quite simple and the past is largely irrelevant in dealing with them.


Just like the prods hounded out of towns like Bandon in the 20's then. We can play this blame game all day but if NI is to prosper, then it'll be people like me who can deal with 'themmuns' that'll be responsible for it.

This stuff you post is priceless!!! Where did I imply that catholics would be swilling champers, wearing top hats and monacles? :rolleyes:

Yes, there were slums in other Irish cities, south of the border and still in the British Empire, but having a city where 80% of the population are kept in a minority on their own city council by the other 20% and suffer greatly as a result hardly allows for a fair reflection on the region's economic performance. No different than saying South Africa was one of the richest countries in Africa and don't worry about the poor blacks, maybe they are richer than the blacks in Botswana. Sure they don't know how lucky they are... :rolleyes:

Oh and apologies for 'the bleeding heart' stuff. I shouldn't really be posting about the poor/discriminated against when someone else is trying to paint a picture of an idyllic society.

Freelancer

The two things the republican movement don't want rational people thinking about, are;

1) that (when) the majority the of NI want renunification, that the (then) unionist minority won't object to that political situation with violence.

The absurdity of the republican movement is that once the majority of Ni want reunification it will happen with ease. It ignores the beligerance and
intranigence of the unionists (not an organisation famous for its flexibility on its position) The likelyhood of reunification not been met with violence on their side is remote. An unwilliness to admit this is a possibility is the "La La La Lets ignore the pink elephant" of the republican movement.

2) The other pink elephant is the cost. I'm pretty sure that any poll SF can create would say "the majority of the republic of Ireland want a united Ireland". However they'd never bother creating a poll saying "What price would you pay, financialy, for the reunification?". a .5% tax increase? 4.5%? Cause it needs to be considered. And SF don't want to discuss the above because again instead of talking about the romantic idealogy of a unitied ireland they'd be forced to talk about how we'd pay for it.

The republicans don't even bother considering the two above implications (publically). Why? Because they're not the kind of thoughts that please SF et all. They know, that as an concept most Irish people like the ideal of unity they'd just be unwilling to actualy admit the cost.

Nuttzz

i'd echo what freelancer says and also add that in the context of continued and greater European integration a united Ireland becomes irrelevant.

sceptre

cormacs wrote:

Im sure that (once again) I'll be banned, but god people - take a good long look at yourselves then throw up somewhere, please.

I'd pay some half attention to your posts if you actually addressed points rather than taking worthless sideswipes at people without bothering to contribute to the actual discussion at all. Try that and I might even notice your posts. Try what you actually did again and your worth to the forum is such that I'll happily leave you outside the door and no-one will notice. Don't take a look at yourself, take a look at your contribution.

Benedict XVI

cormacs wrote:

Benedict XVI - with opinions like yours around, there'll never be peace..

I really should not be replying to you cormacs, but I really fell I have to.

From where I am sitting in the west of the Republic of Ireland all seems to be very peaceful.
I was in Derry\Londonderry a few months back and not once in my 3 days there did I see a member of the security forces, all looked peaceful to me. I know it was only a few days but from an outsiders view all look pleasant.

Do you really think peace will come with a united Ireland?
Do you really think that ‘Billy’ in the loyalist areas of the North will sit back and allow it to happen?
And if they don’t do you really think that they will up sticks and move to Britain (formerly the ‘mainland’).

You like many republicans and nationalists have a utopian view of what a united Ireland will bring.
Like a poster above said, you are afraid to mention the elephant in the corner.
God bless you innocence.

Flex

murphaph wrote:

So Derry had slums, big deal-so did Dublin and Limerick and Cork, right up until recent enough times, so don't give me the bleeding heart stuff. There were poor people everywhere, Dublin, Derry, Belfast, Glasgow, Liverpool.......You attempt to imply that if it wasn't for the prods, the catholics would have all been top hat and monacle wearing, champagne swilling millionaires. It's rubbish. Yes, there were political inequalities and civil rights abuses in NI (which affected poor protestants too, though to a lesser extent) for a long time but the place was still self sufficient, didn't require a huge british subvention as it does now and didn't implode financially as had been anticipated in 1921.

NI is a comlex beast, intertwined with our own complex history, intertwined with britain's history and so on. It's rarely as simple as the republicans on here make out, though today's problems are quite simple and the past is largely irrelevant in dealing with them.

thats a tad bit facetious there. The idea that most Catholic people living in slums in Derry where living in slums for the same reason as people in slums in 'Dublin and Limerick and Cork' is ridiculous. the reason the north east was 'prosperous' or self sufficient or whatever is because for the best part of their existence the Orange dictatorship in Stormont was only concerned with catering to one part of the community (the protestant/unionist part). Prominent government officials encouraged employers to sack Catholic workers and ,with the exception of welfare and education, Catholics were discriminated against in every aspect of life (I think the aim was to make living conditions terrible to the point Catholics would have to leave, and to 'liquidate' Catholic majorities in certain areas, like Fermanagh for example).

Just like the prods hounded out of towns like Bandon in the 20's then.

Gotta link for that (from a neutral source, not a loyalist website) I could read?

murphaph

Flex wrote:

thats a tad bit facetious there. The idea that most Catholic people living in slums in Derry where living in slums for the same reason as people in slums in 'Dublin and Limerick and Cork' is ridiculous.

Explain that. I put it down to plain old poverty, just like in the rest of the United Kingdom where poor people lived with outside toilets right up until the post war period.

Flex wrote:

the reason the north east was 'prosperous' or self sufficient or whatever is because for the best part of their existence the Orange dictatorship in Stormont was only concerned with catering to one part of the community (the protestant/unionist part).

No, it's because the north east industrialised, the rest of the island did not. Stormont didn't exist when the north east began to industrialise and became prosperous as a result.

Flex wrote:

Prominent government officials encouraged employers to sack Catholic workers and ,with the exception of welfare and education, Catholics were discriminated against in every aspect of life (I think the aim was to make living conditions terrible to the point Catholics would have to leave, and to 'liquidate' Catholic majorities in certain areas, like Fermanagh for example).

Oh for God's sake. Fermanagh and the rest of west Ulster failed to industrialise during the mid 19th century in the manner that the north east did. The north east of the island of Ireland was the only part to industrialise on a large scale. This was one of the reasons the unionist population feared a agrarian dominated Dublin government, and who could blame them? Regardless of the discrimination which did go on (I am not denying for one moment that there were abuses of the catholic population you'll note!) the reasons for the prosperity of Belfast (which ws bigger than Dublin for a long time) cme down to a process of industrialisation during the 19th century which the rest of Ireland did't bother with. Deal with it.

Flex wrote:

Gotta link for that (from a neutral source, not a loyalist website) I could read?

No such thing as a neutral source where NI is concerned but if you're implying that no protestants were treated badly by yokels in the free state folowing partitio then it's more of your viewing the world through green, white and orange tinted sunglasses.:)

Flex

murphaph wrote:

Explain that. I put it down to plain old poverty, just like in the rest of the United Kingdom where poor people lived with outside toilets right up until the post war period.

Religious discrimination plaed a big part

No, it's because the north east industrialised, the rest of the island did not. Stormont didn't exist when the north east began to industrialise and became prosperous as a result.

Oh for God's sake. Fermanagh and the rest of west Ulster failed to industrialise during the mid 19th century in the manner that the north east did. The north east of the island of Ireland was the only part to industrialise on a large scale. This was one of the reasons the unionist population feared a agrarian dominated Dublin government, and who could blame them? Regardless of the discrimination which did go on (I am not denying for one moment that there were abuses of the catholic population you'll note!) the reasons for the prosperity of Belfast (which ws bigger than Dublin for a long time) cme down to a process of industrialisation during the 19th century which the rest of Ireland did't bother with. Deal with it.

Before 1824 Britain didnt allow Irish industries to export most of the things it produced, and when this ban was lifted in 1824 but at the same time Britain removed its Irish duties and flooded the Irish market with cheaper goods, whihc made our indutries collapse. Coincidentally the only place which became wealthy from the industrial revolution was the Protestant north east, while the Catholic south and west was treated like a granry to supply an abundant source of cheap food to our neighbours. The people of the south and west were just as hard working as Irish Protestants when given the chance to work which they prooved when they went to America. And Catholics had been reduced to a state of serfdom by the Penal Laws; despite making up over 80% of the population, they owned practically none of the land or wealth; it was owned by Protestants, and the fact Catholics had been barred from recieving an education and taking part in certain professions (like law), they were obviously at a disadvantage when it came to being capable of organising and developing industries. And the terrible infrastructure also played a part in this.

No such thing as a neutral source where NI is concerned but if you're implying that no protestants were treated badly by yokels in the free state folowing partitio then it's more of your viewing the world through green, white and orange tinted sunglasses.:)

Is there a source, even a loyalist one then? Seriously, if so many Protestants were 'hounded' out of the south then there should be dozens of examples. I have Presbyterian ancestory, and they moved from NI to the FS and didnt encounter religious discrimination of any kind and even got good civil service jobs (1 example I realise, but nevertheless..)

(And Im sorry if I come across as being a smartass towards you, because I mean that as a general statement, not a snide reamark at you:) ).

Maskhadov

I think the northern protestants failed to re act properly to a changing globe. All the industry went down the tubes and they couldnt think up anything new.

The north is a mess. Mac Williams can write all he wants about the north being a golden egg but anyone who has spent any length of time up there knows what the real story is.

Never mind the massive shortfall of £8bn a year just to keep the tiny 6 counties running. The problem is the people. An awful lot of them dont want to work and just want to live off the system. We wont be getting 1.5 million people like the poles et al who want to work and fit in. I dont know if its such a great move to join up the two parts of the island.

There is another topic which isnt often discussed. A lot of them suffer from a bad mentality compared to people in the south and dont share our same values. They are pretty different to us. Give me 1.5 million east europeans any day

LovelyHurling

NI is a financial disaster for the government, but I think we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that the South was in a dire financial situation many times since 1922 and any suggestion of reunification with the 'saviour' UK would have been met with extreme anger and revulsion. Its just as proposterous to Unionists as unification with the 'saviour' south. There are easier ways to fix the North's economy than bring the peace process back 47 years

MrPudding

No one in the North with any sense wants a united Ireland.

Yeah yeah, the whole romantic thing is great but the cold hard fact is a lot of people in the north will be much worse off in a UI.

The other aspect is what will the minority of people that don't want it? Well, they are a majority now but will have to be the minority for it to happen. There are a couple of boards people that have posted in the past that they will just say "oh, OK then." I don't think so.

I find it hard to see any financial upside.

MrP

A Dub in Glasgo

MrPudding wrote:

No one in the North with any sense wants a united Ireland.

Are you saying that anyone in the North who wants a UI has no sense?

Maskhadov

anyone who has been in the north (from the south) with any sense does not want a united ireland.