Why can’t we be like Ireland?

WHEN Gordon Brown’s latest plan offers less than his last-ditch “near-federal” Vow promise to save the Union in 2014 and fails to give Scotland the powers to deal with immigration and address health care staff shortages, full fiscal powers or a way back to the EU, it is instructive to compare

Scotland’s position with Ireland, which this week celebrates 100 years of independence.

Scotland’s North Sea has generated hundreds of billions in tax revenues for London governments which have allowed Denmark and Norway to become world leaders in renewable energy manufacturing. Energy-rich Scotland with its massive green renewable potential fares badly when compared to Ireland, which has no oil production. In the last 50 years, the Celtic Tiger has seen rapid growth and GDP per capita now surpasses the UK. Irish citizens enjoy a much higher standard of living than in the UK with better state pensions, lower income inequality, the highest life expectancy at birth in Europe and a younger population with one in five born elsewhere while Labour

and Tory outbid each other on curbing immigration. Exports to the UK are worth £21 billion a year but only 13% of Ireland’s total.

RTE has 10 radio stations and four TV channels compared to BBC Scotland’s miniscule output. Ireland also has proportional representation and an elected head of state unlike London’s antiquated first past the post system of government. Since Brexit, 1200 financial sector jobs have moved from London to Dublin and more than 40 direct sailings each week to Europe transport Ireland’s flourishing exports. Why not Scotland?

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh.