‘Unity won’t cost €400 ’ BN
SF DISPUTES COST OF NORTH REPORT
SINN Fein has disputed a new report that suggests the cost of a United Ireland would cost €20 billion a year for 20 years — for a total of €400bn.
The report published by the Institute of International and European Affairs is authored by the Economic and Social Research Institute’s John FitzGerald and Dublin City University academic Professor Edgar Morgenroth.
They suggested that taxation would need to be increased by 25 per cent and that there would need to be a cut in expenditure.
Debt
The report also suggested that basic unification costs after losing subventions from the British Government and other costs could run to nearly €11 billion a year.
Speaking on RTE’s Today with Claire Byrne, Sinn Fein TD Padraig Mac Lochlainn said that he disputed the methodology used to compile the report and said it does not account for economic growth in the North.
Mr Mac Lochlainn said: “I would dispute the methodology of this. It is static analysis. You are accepting the subvention at face value.
“Professor John Doyle of DCU in recent times has written that the actual subvention is much less. It’s about €2.4 billion.
“It’s about a quarter of what the British Government says… When you deduct the pensions, debt repayments, contributions to the Defence Forces of Britain and so on. “It’s much less than the headline figure. “Also, the report assumes there’ll be no economic growth in the North. We know that since Brexit, there’s been substantial growth in the all-Ireland economy.
Mr Mac Lochlainn also said that the British Government will not just “walk away from the pitch” if there is Irish reunification.
He also argued that questions on matters such as what should happen to the North’s debt owed to Britain need to be discussed in greater detail.
“All of the questions are why we have said there needs to be a Citizens’ Assembly, why there needs to be actual planning [or] a White Paper from Government,” he continued.
“Nobody assumes the context of Irish reunification where people on both sides of the border have voted for a United Ireland that the British government just walks away from the pitch.
“There is a range of responsibilities they would continue, pensions being one.”