Cash barrier to a united Ireland

Sir — You published a letter from Paddy McEvoy (Sunday Independent, July 9) proposing a declaration from Dublin and London, that after a 50-year period, Ireland will be united.

But there is a problem. Many people here would answer yes if asked would they like to see a united Ireland at some time in the future. However, if told the amount of extra taxation they would have to pay to keep Northern Ireland in the style to which it has become accustomed, I imagine you would get a somewhat different answer.

I am a 78-year-old who first visited the North in the late 1950s — when the roads were better and you could buy Mars bars. It seemed a nice place. Then the disadvantaged native minority had the nerve to look for civil rights — and that was that. The carry on by both sides since then has been unreal, with a few honourable exceptions.

As examples of how disunited they now are, one group currently wants to hold sectarian marches in areas where they are not welcome, while the other group wants to have special status given exclusively to the Irish language, in the full and certain knowledge that their proposal has all the flying properties of a lead brick.

The obvious answer, is for both groups to drop their childish demands and get on with running Northern Ireland for the benefit of all.

It appears that both sides would cheerfully walk barefoot on broken glass if they thought it would upset the other lot. A united Ireland cannot be legislated for and will happen only when both sides want it — and we are prepared to pay for it. Jim McGlone, Ballybrack, Co Dublin