OPINION: The unification debate must move beyond economics

The recent report by Professors John Fitzgerald and Edgar Morganroth on the ‘costs’ of unifying Ireland has sparked a debate that produces more heat than light.
The professors show that Northern Ireland (NI), currently a UK region, cannot pay its own way. The level of public expenditure in NI greatly exceeds the level of revenue, and deficits are funded by transfers from the UK Treasury. If NI were an independent country, its budget deficit would be about 25-35 percent of its GDP. The IMF would have moved in long ago and imposed the kinds of draconian expenditure controls that Ireland suffered after our economy self-destructed during the global financial crisis of 2007-10.
Because of the large size of the NI deficit, the report asserts that it is unlikely that hard-pressed Irish taxpayers would be willing to support the financial burden, even if our government was minded to do so. Until the health of the NI economy dramatically improves, prospects for a united Ireland appear remote. This may even motivate Unionists to resist economic development, particularly if it involves greater co-operation with Ireland.
It’s hard to argue with these facts. However, if the unification question continues to be debated in this narrow, economistic and financial way, we will never be able to move forward to more positive engagement.
Consider a hypothetical situation where the leaders of the 1916 Rising decided to seek economic advice as to the wisdom of a break away from the UK and the establishment of an independent state, using violent means in this case. I would imagine that the economists would have said something like the following:
“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MINDS? Have you any idea how decrepit the Irish economy is, other than the Belfast region which the British will never let go? Our transport infrastructure is medieval. We have the worst urban slums in Europe. We have almost no manufacturing, other than in Belfast and Derry. Our underdeveloped agriculture sector employs over 70 percent of our people and exports live cattle and butter to Britain, our only export market. Population imploded after the Famine and people are fleeing the country to seek work in Britain. But we have a privileged inside track within the world’s most prosperous and powerful state, with tariff-free access for our farm produce. AND YOU ARE PROPOSING TO LEAVE THE UK! Are you so deluded that you think the Irish people will support this crazy scheme and suffer a massive reduction in living standards?”
Economists tend to have very strong views about data but a weak understanding of history. History is influenced by economistic cost-benefit analysis, but not determined by it. If our island is ever to find its way out of the current historical stalemate within NI and between north and south, it will require much deeper imagination, analysis, flexibility and courage.
Partition of our island in 1921 damaged us deeply in ways that are both visible and invisible. After many false starts, Ireland evolved from the rather negative state caricatured above into a modern, prosperous nation that maintains friendly relations with our erstwhile colonial master, sits comfortably within the European Union and plays a constructive role in wider international affairs. However, we in the Northern and Western region continue to be more seriously affected by the border than other regions. The lagging status of our region is mainly due to a peripherality made worse by the border, with Donegal most seriously affected.
Over the decades since the end of the NI civil war and the 1998 signing of the Good Friday agreement, few Northern Unionists have displayed the slightest willingness to deepen north-south co-operation on a pragmatic, friendly and mutually beneficial way, along the lines, say, of the pre-EU Benelux states (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg).
Throughout the years that I worked in the ESRI on north-south economic research, my efforts were systematically sabotaged by a NI unionist civil service and unionist politicians and there is ample indication that this deep-seated refusal to co-operate will continue. Is it any wonder that Sinn Féin promotes a radical way of breaking out of this stagnation through pressing for unification?
Serious political discussion about the path to unification needs to start now. But let’s initially implement a more united Ireland and leave unification for later consideration. Forget about flags and border referenda. Discussion has to focus on ways that the NI economy can be revived and dynamised, initially with the two island administrations working side by side as equal and friendly partners.
The irony is that many northern Unionists find themselves today in a somewhat similar situation to the 1916 leaders before independence: a relatively stagnant economy, low investment, few good job opportunities, crumbling physical and social infrastructure, disruption of markets. But the violent break away from the UK that led to Irish independence can surely take a more constructive path to resolving the poisonous legacy of partition and addressing the economic development challenges currently faced by the people of NI.
The price of such a desirable and mutually beneficial outcome would be well worth paying. The cost of a more united Ireland will be much lower than Professors Fitzgerald and Morganroth calculated. But will the Unionists recognise and accept such a great deal if it is offered to them?

John Bradley is a former ESRI professor and has published on the island economy of Ireland, EU development policy, industrial strategy and economic modelling.