“We need a conversation that sets out how we would run a united Ireland”

Having written the first report on achieving a united Ireland in the history of the Oireachtas, Fianna Fáil Seanadóir Mark Daly will soon publish a new report focusing on unionist fears in the event of a united Ireland. He speaks with Odrán Waldron about reunification, what shape a united Ireland would take and his assessment that the DUP have blown a political “bonanza”.

Daly’s report carried with it 17 recommendations that were unanimously approved by the Seanad. Among them was a recommendation for further research into the income and expenditure of Northern Ireland to be conducted. Daly collaborated with the Gunther Thumann, an economist with valuable experience of a reunification process, having been a senior IMF official during the reintegration of Germany.

What Daly and Thumann have outlined is a reality far away from the cripplingly-expensive reunification process often portrayed: “Included in the running cost of Northern Ireland are things that, in a reunification scenario, wouldn’t count,” he says. “The way the British Government calculate Northern Ireland’s expenditure, they include their share of UK military spending globally, their share of the EU subvention, their share of the national debt and their share of royal family costs.

“That would mean that instead of the £9.2 billion that they’re talking about [the figure included in the last Northern Ireland Net Fiscal Balance Report, a figure verified by Nevin Research Institute’s Tom Healy in 2015, but projected to be as high as £11 billion by the Ulster Unionist Party in 2016], there would be a reduction of about £2.9 billion.” Daly also mentions an accounting reduction incorporating things like student loans that accounted for another reduction of £1.1 billion. “Gunther said the civil service should be rationalised because it accounts for 11.4 per cent of the North’s population, whereas in the Republic it’s 8.4 per cent. That would save £1.7 billion.” However, Daly does not outline how the substantial job losses brought about by rationalisation would be addressed.

Bearing in mind the role pension fears played in the lead-up to the referendum for Scottish independence in 2014, Daly is clear on what would be done with the pensions of those who were previously in the employ of the United Kingdom’s state services. “Because the contribution was made while Northern Ireland was part of the UK, it would remain the responsibility of the British Government to pay them,” he asserts. “That would save another £2.8 billion.”

“That’s a total saving of about £8.5 billion, so in a reunification scenario, the cost is £700 million.”

Despite the work of Daly and Thumann and other research conducted by the University of British Columbia, the idea that a united Ireland would prove too costly for the Republic still permeates, with research done by economists John FtizGerald and Edgar Morgenroth finding that the loss of an €11 billion subvention (£9.4 billion) to Northern Ireland would result in southern living standards falling permanently by 15 per cent. Daly is aware of the sentiment still being the dominant sticking point in the south but is optimistic that work such as his own will eventually lead to a belief in the benefits of reunification overtaking such hesitancy. “It takes a long time for it get through the ether because for 50 years people have been saying we can’t afford the subvention,” he says.

“It’s not me saying it, it’s a senior economist involved in German reunification,” he points out, but the economics of German reunification do come with an asterisk. “Even today they cannot agree on the cost of German reunification, but still 70 per cent of Germans believe it has been a success and 80 per cent believe it should be a model for others.”

Economics will not win a majority in a political war that is identarian at its core. Daly is cognisant of this and his research has since branched into the fears of unionists in the event of a united Ireland coming to pass. “It’s not about trying to convince them to be part of something that’s not part of their identity,” he emphasises. “It’s about respecting them and showing them that in a united Ireland their identity will be protected, which at this moment in time the Government simply haven’t done.”

“It’s not about trying to convince unionists to be part of something that’s not part of their identity. It’s about respecting them and showing them that in a united Ireland their identity will be protected, which at this moment in time the Government simply haven’t done.”

Daly is referring to the Irish Government’s failure to guarantee the ability of northern-born Irish passports holders to access EU services in the withdrawal agreement, reasoning that if the Government is failing passport holders, they couldn’t be expected to protect those who identify as British. He says the rights issue was a “massive failure” that there is “no excuse for, because they did it in Cyprus”. He cites the contention of High Court Justice Richard Humphreys, one of the foremost writers on the prospect of a united Ireland, who said that political paralysis, a failure to plan, in the Republic is the biggest threat to a united Ireland.

“Doing nothing is the policy that will bring about violence on both sides, whereas if you address the issue now and put in place the policies then we can avoid another flags protest,” Daly contends. “The agreement generation [those born around the time of the Good Friday Agreement] have no knowledge of the harm caused by the Troubles and they are open to radicalisation, as we’ve seen in Derry recently and you get loyalist band members being radicalised too. If nobody is talking to them and telling them that the future isn’t the nightmare that they have heard of, then they will be manipulated by politicians.

“The real challenge about this is setting out a New Ireland Forum II. It would look at all the issues: housing, health, education, foreign policy and domestic policy. We’re not talking about a united Ireland in the sense that a lot of republicans would have envisioned or that unionists would have feared. We need a conversation that sets out how we would run a united Ireland for the benefit of everybody, even those who would not favour a united Ireland need a clear idea of what their lives within one would be. That is the lesson of Brexit more than anything else: you don’t hold a referendum and then try to figure out the future.”

Daly’s work is rare in that it is one of few examples of a non-Sinn Féin politician from the Republic developing an interest in and understanding of the North, to the point that he recognises that “the fundamental underlying problem in relation to radicalisation is poverty”. “If you give the youth a future, they’re not going to throw it away,” he says. “With hope, housing, education and opportunity, they have some chance.”

Yet there is one sticking point in northern politics that Daly cannot wrap his head around: “This will be recorded as the greatest failing by a party in the history of politics: the DUP not accepting a deal that was the best deal for any region in the world, where you remained in the EU and the UK and have a foothold in both camps. It was a bonanza waiting to happen and they turned it down. What would have happened is that a lot of the middle ground Catholics would have supported the status quo. What they’re doing drives us towards a hard border; the only way to get rid of a hard border is a united Ireland.”

In closing, Daly quotes WB Yeats, who said that Ireland would be unified by “creating a system of culture which will represent the whole of this country and which will draw the imagination of the young towards it”. “If you were designing the best new country in the world, what would it look like?” he asks.

“What we have is a blank canvas.”