Taxpayers money going North?

silverharp

Listening to RTE Radio 1 this morning about the North talks and got the impression that Irish Officials "wont be found wanting" when it comes to money to help a deal in the North. Any idea what and how much they are talking about?
I am all for cross boarder development but only if the cheque book stops at the boarder.

gandalf

Heard this on newstalk as well this morning but no mention of the story anywhere. I find this incredible. If they don't pay taxes into our economy then they shouldn't be getting hand outs from us.

Northern Ireland needs to wean itself off state handouts as it is. State investment makes up a disporportionate percentage of their economy.

Here are a few fact nicked from Wikipedia

• The public sector accounts for 63% of the economy of Northern Ireland, which is substantially higher than 43% of the United Kingdom as a whole
• In total, the British government subvention totals £5,000m, or 20% of Northern Ireland's economic output

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Northern_Ireland

mike65

Why should anyone be suprised at either the notion or the fact Dermot Ahern will write cheques till the cows come home and expect no-one down here to raise an eyebrow?

As pointed out above NI has cash coming out of its ears but being wasted on employing an army of public servants, may I suggest they re-focus spending on infrastucture first.

Mike.

Flukey

Taxpayers money goes everywhere, so there is nothing particularly unusual about this. Cross-border activity will necessitate that. Plenty of money comes south too, in many ways. From this simplest things like people buying things when they come across the border, to larger projects. This has more positive benefits in the long term. An All-Ireland approach to lots of things will benefit everyone, and that will require investment. That in itself will help change the situation in the North where so much money is going into the public areas, and promote enterprise.

bik_ireland

gandalf wrote:

Heard this on newstalk as well this morning but no mention of the story anywhere. I find this incredible. If they don't pay taxes into our economy then they shouldn't be getting hand outs from us.

Northern Ireland needs to wean itself off state handouts as it is. State investment makes up a disporportionate percentage of their economy.

Here are a few fact nicked from Wikipedia

• The public sector accounts for 63% of the economy of Northern Ireland, which is substantially higher than 43% of the United Kingdom as a whole
• In total, the British government subvention totals £5,000m, or 20% of Northern Ireland's economic output

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Northern_Ireland

And who exactly is reponsible for PUTTING the 6 counties into the situation where they NEED that level of subvention?
The north can only start to begin to recover, not only politically and culturally, but economically - after re-unification - and even then - after many years of stability. We in the south abandoned the north in 1922 - having given solemn promise to continue to struggle for british withdrawal from the remainder of the country. You cannot blame the north for issues beyond their control.

flogen

I'm sure plenty of taxpayers money has gone North before, directly or indirectly.

Yes the NI economy is in a bad shape and relies on the British Government to prop it up, however the catch 22 is that more public money is probably needed to encourage private investment.
The debate should focus on how the money is being spent, not where... after all you can throw money at a problem and it won't get fixed or you could spend some money and a lot of time and come out with the ideal results.

Nuttzz

i had a laugh at this, some here might remember the Anglo Irish Argreement in 85, I remember the unionists on RTE (today tonight) telling us how we (the south) could never afford to pay for the north and what a great economic success it was, now 20 years later......

mike65

Yep I recall those days. They were right at the time don't forget!

Mike.

philologos

gandalf wrote:

Heard this on newstalk as well this morning but no mention of the story anywhere. I find this incredible. If they don't pay taxes into our economy then they shouldn't be getting hand outs from us.

Northern Ireland needs to wean itself off state handouts as it is. State investment makes up a disporportionate percentage of their economy.

Here are a few fact nicked from Wikipedia

• The public sector accounts for 63% of the economy of Northern Ireland, which is substantially higher than 43% of the United Kingdom as a whole
• In total, the British government subvention totals £5,000m, or 20% of Northern Ireland's economic output

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Northern_Ireland

so basically you are saying there is less enterprise in Northern Ireland than there is in mainland UK?

gandalf

Jakkass wrote:

so basically you are saying there is less enterprise in Northern Ireland than there is in mainland UK?

No basically what the stats are saying is the NI economy is based mainly on state handouts via public services jobs.

BTW in the Republic of Ireland the state sector accounts for 36% of our economy. There is no way in its present form NI can ever join with us. If they did the job losses in the Public Sector would be extreme.

philologos

If more business was set up surely it would make more people join the private sector in time though.

fly_agaric

flukey wrote:

Taxpayers money goes everywhere, so there is nothing particularly unusual about this

:eek: The UK is wealthy and powerful. They certainly do not need our tax money. I really hope it is not anything more than a pathetic token for some idiotic woolly projects to do with "the North":rolleyes: . But any money at all is probably too much IMO!

Nuttzz

Jakkass wrote:

If more business was set up surely it would make more people join the private sector in time though.

give up a cushy public sector job for one in the private sector :eek: that will happen!

@Mike: we could never afford it they told us, now look at all the yellow regs on buliding sites

Zebra3

Afaik the Irish government has also put money into Derry airport recently as it is used by people from Donegal.

Ironic to see people complain about it though after the billions that flowed from Europe. And why shouldn't the government spend money on services for Irish citizens? Maybe we should cut off any payments being made to groups who look after poor emigrants abroad. Don't you just hate those leeches who don't pay tax here. :rolleyes:

Maybe we can also cut off services to those millionaires who live here and don't pay tax either. :eek:

silverharp

Zebra3 wrote:

Ironic to see people complain about it though after the billions that flowed from Europe.

I don't think this is a fair comparison, The EEC was based on a transfer of funds from from rich countries to poorer countries. In this case it would be a transfer of money from a supossidly rich country (IRL) to an even richer one (UK).
Given that some kids here are going to school in portacabins I think it would be an a act of hubris on behalf of the gov. to commit significant funds to NI. Most people in NI have access to health and education facilites that alot of people here can only dream of.

mike65

Its great to be Northern Irish is'nt it? Money thrown at you from EU, UK and Ireland and a bit fom the USA to boot! No wonder so much of it is apparantly squandered.

Mike.

Zebra3

silverharp wrote:

Given that some kids here are going to school in portacabins I think it would be an a act of hubris on behalf of the gov. to commit significant funds to NI.

Given that some kids here are going to school in portacabins I think it would be an act of hubris on behalf of the gov. to commit significant funds to the richest people in Ireland in the form of generous tax breaks.

Imagine the outcry if that happened... :rolleyes:

Glenbhoy

gandalf wrote:

If they don't pay taxes into our economy then they shouldn't be getting hand outs from us.

But then maybe they do pay taxes into our economy - have you driven north in the past decade? If so, you might realise that there is barely a petrol station within 40 miles of the border on the northern side - that's a big whack of excise duty and VAT there.
Then there's the gaa, how many times in recent years have the nordies embarked en-masse to Dublin for games, filling croker and her surrounding pubs, not to mention parking fees and clamp release fees.
What about tourism, not just the annual week in Galway or Killarney, but what about the thousands of nordies who make the fortnightly drive to Donegal to their holiday home (yeah, stamp duty paid, VAT paid, propping up the local construction industry)?
Then we have the thousands of nordies who come down here to work, educated by all that public money thats been squandered by them, but now, contributing to this economy.
But maybe you're right, we shouldn't be giving them feckers anything.

gandalf

So is it one way through the border then? I believe the hordes of shoppers from the republic decending on Newry is a sight to behold.

Until they can live together and cut down on their dependency on handouts then yes we shouldn't give them a thing.

Dalfiatach

gandalf wrote:

Until they can live together and cut down on their dependency on handouts then yes we shouldn't give them a thing.

The second bit isn't really the fault of the people of the north though: that's the way it has always been run by Britain. NI has been subsidised from the day it was born. The old Stormont Regime gradually ran the economy into the ground and all the old traditional industry was in terminal decline by the early 1960s, but London just kept on handing over the dosh without complaint, or without any effort to force Old Stormont to adopt forward-looking economic policies. In fact the economic situation was a critical factor in the rise in community tension in the late 60s, as the old contract between political Unionism and the Loyalist working class "vote for us and we'll give you jobs for life in the shipyards/ropeworks/textiles" could no longer be honoured with a decreasing pool of jobs: and at the same time you had the first post-Butler generation of educated Catholics also chasing what jobs there were.

London has been in sole control of the northern economy since 1973 and have done sfa to manage the finances and economy responsibly. We're 12 years into the Peace Process (TM) and still not a single sign of London making any real effort to create and encourage a proper economy. And even if the Assembly was up and running, it has no powers whatsoever to do much of anything in this regard: all fiscal powers are firmly reserved for London.

So, seeing as London clearly has no interest in running the place properly, the local politicians don't have the powers to make changes even if they were working together: who do you suppose will fix the situation?

Look on it as an investment. The southern border counties don't pay their own way either, because of the distorting effects of the border. But put decent cross-border infrastructure in place, and encourage a bit of FDI that was coming our way to locate in the border region, and you could have much increased private industry creating real wealth all across Donegal, west Derry & Tyrone, Fermanagh, Leitrim, S Armagh, S Down, Louth, Cavan, Monaghan. The southern counties become more prosperous and less of a drain on our finances, the northern economy is greatly improved with significant re-balancing away from welfare/public-sector dependancy, and ordinary Unionists living in the border region see the practical benefits of cooperation, economic responsibility and self-rule instead of antagonism and dependancy: benefits they've never had from British rule.

The north isn't going to magically float away into the Atlantic you know. We have to make the best of the situation and do what we can to minimise the negative effects of Partition. Yes, you might think it unfair that we have to clean up the mess of others, but hey - life's not fair. Would you rather have a reasonably stable, prosperous and wealth-creating North on your doorstep; or an unstable unbalanced handout junkie liable to erupt into violence at any time?

silverharp

Glenbhoy wrote:

But then maybe they do pay taxes into our economy ......But maybe you're right, we shouldn't be giving them feckers anything.

Your logic is flawed, countries don’t get rebates for trade imbalances with other countries, on that basis we should pay for new infrastructure tobe built in Germany cos of all the money we get from German tourists.


Deals should be done but on a business basis, if it is cheaper for people in Donegal to access Health services over the border, then fine,let the HSE come up with a scheme. Shared electricity, cool. If the british gov are dragging their heals on funding the M1 up to Belfast then let the NTMA fund it as a toll road.

Deals done on any other basis will be wasteful and will do nothing to win unionist support

Glenbhoy

silverharp wrote:

Your logic is flawed, countries don’t get rebates for trade imbalances with other countries, on that basis we should pay for new infrastructure tobe built in Germany cos of all the money we get from German tourists.

I did not say that at all, my response was based on a statement by Gandalf saying that "If they don't pay taxes into our economy then they shouldn't be getting hand outs from us", I was merely pointing out that they do in fact pay considerable amounts of tax into this economy, therefore, using Gandalf's logic, they should be getting handouts from us.

Gandalf wrote:

So is it one way through the border then? I believe the hordes of shoppers from the republic decending on Newry is a sight to behold.

Until they can live together and cut down on their dependency on handouts then yes we shouldn't give them a thing.

No, the commerce is not one way, however I believe the value and regularity of purchases made south of the border far exceed the value of purchases in the north. In addition the type of products differ significantly in terms of contribution to the exchequer, eg petrol in the south, the majority of the price is excise duties or vat, whereas no such levies are applied to (what I presume are) the majority of goods sold in the north to southerners.
As for your last statement re their inability to live together, spent much time up there have you??

sceptre

Glenbhoy wrote:

I did not say that at all, my response was based on a statement by Gandalf saying that "If they don't pay taxes into our economy then they shouldn't be getting hand outs from us", I was merely pointing out that they do in fact pay considerable amounts of tax into this economy, therefore, using Gandalf's logic, they should be getting handouts from us.

A implies B doesn't necessarily mean that A is true merely because B is true. Fallacy of the affirmation of the consequent. Sorry to be blunt but logic doesn't get to play the game you'd like it to.

Sleepy

So my taxes are now paying for another country?

Tax revenue being donated to the third world I can accept and fully support but last time I checked, the UK was a first world country.

Glenbhoy

Sleepy wrote:

So my taxes are now paying for another country?

Tax revenue being donated to the third world I can accept and fully support but last time I checked, the UK was a first world country.

Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones:

Economic and social cohesion: the Union embodies the principle of economic and social cohesion according to which the less prosperous regions are helped to reduce disparities between their levels of development and those of the more prosperous regions. This principle was reinforced in the Single European Act and again in the Maastricht Treatyy. Under the present round ofstructural funds, which will apply until the end of 1999, Ireland will receive funding of approximately £1 billion per year.

http://www.ireland-information.com/reference/european.html

Zebra3

More from today's Indo. and this I find a bit much..

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1706336&issue_id=14768

A quarter of the Ulster Scots Agency's annual €3.09m budget is provided by Irish taxpayers.

mm4

This thread is incredible - the reality is totally the opposite; money from the UK's flowing into Ireland - via the EU - at a massive rate "Glenbhoy" mentions it but appears wary of doing so with clarity.

Ireland is the biggest recipient of EU money - it is one of only four countries which are net-recipients. In terms of cash per head, the funding in 2003 to a net receipt of €391.70 for each Irish national. The UK is a net donor to the EU, UK taxpayers are making a significant contribution to that figure.

http://www.finfacts.ie/comment/irelandeunetreceiptsbenefits.htm

This won't carry on for much longer - and it has been a good investment for the UK - much better to have rich happy neighbours.

mike65

OT but this state has received 30 billion euro in all programmes from the EU since joining. Also as some may know, a billion of the next National Development Plan is going to NI. It looks like this state is, bit-by-bit taking over Norn Iron.

Mike.

silverharp

mm4 wrote:

This thread is incredible - the reality is totally the opposite; money from the UK's flowing into Ireland - via the EU - at a massive rate "Glenbhoy" mentions it but appears wary of doing so with clarity.

"via the EU" is a very important phrase and is completly different to this situation. When I voted for the Agreement I didn't think I was signing up to shared financial responsibilty for NI. Both sides up there have it in there heads that if they are awkward enough gov. will get out the cheque books. This is a bad start. The DUP have nothing but contempt for this country and no amount of goodwill here will make any difference.

A Dub in Glasgo

silverharp wrote:

"via the EU" is a very important phrase and is completly different to this situation. When I voted for the Agreement I didn't think I was signing up to shared financial responsibilty for NI. Both sides up there have it in there heads that if they are awkward enough gov. will get out the cheque books. This is a bad start. The DUP have nothing but contempt for this country and no amount of goodwill here will make any difference.

What is 'completely different'?

The fact is that non-RoI taxpayers have pumped huge amount of money into the RoI to ensure that the RoI has a basic standard of infrastructure. Are you against contributing to the NI economy because it is not done via the EU?

fly_agaric

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

What is 'completely different'?

It was hardly as if all the EU monies we got came from the UK. I think France, and especially Germany paid more didn't they?
Also, when we joined the EU we were alot poorer and more backward compared to these wealthy countries than NI is compared to us.
We are only just now getting to the point where our infrastructure may match theirs and public services are still worse.
In addtion Ireland is not a > trillion dollar economy of (at least) 60 million people as all the EU paymasters are while NI is actually small region of one of these rich countries - not an impoverished little fellow EU nation needing help from the likes of us.
So alot of things are different.
We'd be better off giving a billion (if that's the figure being mentioned) in structural funds to Poland IMO. Or maybe Latvia or Lithuania:)