The political parties negotiating to form Ireland’s new coalition government agree on one thing: the ultimate goal of reunifying the partitioned island.
But merging the poorer north, which is part of the UK, with the wealthy south, which is in the EU and uses the euro, would come at a price: anywhere from an initial €2.5bn to €20bn a year for two decades, according to recent studies.
Neither the centrist Fianna Fáil nor centre-right Fine Gael, Ireland’s main coalition partners, are in any hurry to make it a priority.
The Irish border loomed large during Northern Ireland’s Troubles, in which more than 3,600 people were killed in three decades of conflict involving Irish republican paramilitaries in the IRA, pro-UK paramilitaries and British security forces.
Advocates of reunification say focusing on costs is short-sighted, especially at a time when Ireland’s record budget surpluses provide the necessary fiscal space. As the debate intensifies, some even say Ireland cannot afford not to reunify.
“The financial position of the Republic of Ireland has never been better and it’s substantially better than that of the UK,” former Fine Gael Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar told the Financial Times. “If ever there was a time to do it, it’s now. It makes sense to put some of our surplus into a sovereign wealth fund to prepare for reunification.”
Ending partition would show how the economic tables have turned since the island was divided in 1921: then, Belfast was industrialised while the south was predominantly agricultural, but Ireland is now about 50 per cent richer per capita than Northern Ireland; its citizens have 12 per cent more disposable income and life expectancy at birth is almost two years higher.
More than a century after partition, reunification would mean integrating two economies with different standards of living, styles of government, education systems, health services and currencies — and persuading people north and south.
Sinn Féin, the biggest party in Northern Ireland and the main opposition in the Republic, has Irish unity as its raison d’être, but pro-UK groups in the north are bitterly opposed, even if polls show the trend is shifting.
A survey in October sponsored by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council found support in Northern Ireland for staying in the UK fell below 50 per cent for the first time to 48.6 per cent, with 33.7 per cent backing Irish unity.
In the Republic, polls show most people like the idea of reunification — but reject the prospect of paying higher taxes to fund it.
“I feel like Northern Ireland is the child in a divorce — both sides fight over us, both sides want us, but actually they don’t want to pay for us,” said Emma Shaw, chief executive of the Phoenix Education Centre seeking to combat educational underachievement in unionist East Belfast.
If Ireland is reunified, one of the biggest economic effects will be to bring the north fully back into the EU, which the UK left in 2020 after the Brexit referendum. Experts see different ways of integrating the region into a united Ireland, but in all cases Northern Ireland would re-enter the EU.
“I think, in time, it would be better for Northern Ireland economically — you would immediately see a reduction in interest rates by joining the euro, more investment in infrastructure,” said Varadkar, unusually forthright about Irish unity in and out of office. “You would see Northern Ireland grow faster and catch up.”
It is true that Northern Ireland’s main market is Great Britain and moving away from that would have “transitional costs”, said Brendan O’Leary, politics professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
But Britain is also one of the Republic’s top trading partners and reunification would foster more trade with the US, with Northern Ireland a “clear locus for foreign direct investment in a way it hasn’t been”, he added.
Among those pushing for reunification, Varadkar, who quit as Irish premier in April, says it is “reasonable” to save for reunification in the same way Ireland is salting away some of its budget surpluses for future pension, climate and infrastructure needs.
Thanks to vast corporation tax receipts from global tech and pharma companies, which have almost tripled since 2019 and amounted to €35bn for January to November, Ireland is expecting a €24bn budget surplus this year.
By contrast, Northern Ireland’s executive says it has too little cash to meet the needs of its struggling public services. It is funded by the UK government with a “block grant” and will receive a record £18.2bn in 2025-26.
Gavin Robinson MP, whose Democratic Unionist party is the region’s largest pro-UK group, insisted Irish unity was based on “economic myths and fantasy” and said “our overriding objective must always be to make Northern Ireland work, to deliver prosperity”.
But demographic and political trends indicate that the unionist majority for which Northern Ireland was created has gone. So too have the shipbuilding and linen industries that once made it the richest part of the island; now productivity is 20 per cent lower than for its southern sister.
Catching up would be a challenge. Edgar Morgenroth, co-author of a study that estimated reunification would cost €8bn and €20bn a year for 20 years, said it was “heroic to assume that Northern Ireland is going to magically converge [with the Republic] and have higher productivity”.
But Seamus McGuinness, research professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute, an independent think-tank in Dublin, said Ireland’s productivity gap over Northern Ireland has only opened up in the last two decades, and could be narrowed with the right policies.
“It’s not a scenario where we’re taking a low-productivity Northern Ireland, subsuming it into the Republic of Ireland, and [we’re] going to incur that cost ad infinitum with no expectation that productivity or performance in the region will ever improve,” he said.
In a report this summer, a cross-party parliamentary committee in Ireland found “a compelling case to begin planning” for possible unity.
Thorny issues would have to be hammered out — including who would pay Northern Irish pensions and any liability for its share of UK debt and defence spending.
In any case, Northern Ireland’s status can only be changed via a referendum, which can be called at any time by the UK but must be arranged when the UK government believes a majority in the region would back it. Such a condition is far from being met, but those who want unity point to the chaos of Brexit and say it is never too early to plan.
Even in the Republic, which would also have to hold a so-called “border poll”, it looks like a final push for unity remains at least several years away. Sinn Féin, which wants a reunification referendum by 2030, won the second-highest number of seats in Ireland’s general election in November but lacks a path to forming a government.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which led the last government and both said in their manifestos that unity was an objective, are just short of a parliamentary majority.
Yet they appear on course to bring in independent deputies, rather than form a coalition with Labour, which is among the parties to go furthest on the reunification question: it wants “structured” planning and a dedicated government department to achieve it.
North of the border, even among those who once fought for the region to remain part of the UK, some await the eventual outcome with equanimity. Davy Adams, a former loyalist paramilitary during the Troubles, said he would make a purely pragmatic decision if the time came.
“I will vote for the best future for my children and grandchildren,” he told a conference organised by pro-unity lobby group Ireland’s Future in Belfast in June. “It won’t matter to me in the slightest which [it is].”
