The high cost of unification

Sir, – Eoin Burke-Kennedy writes that the cost of a united Ireland is as contested as the politics (“North’s ailing economy explains the high cost of unification”, Economics, April 8th). John FitzGerald and Edgar Morgenroth have estimated the bill for reunification at €20 billion a year for 20 years and the starting point for this is Northern Ireland’s annual fiscal deficit which is of the order of €12 billion.

Part of the pushback against the suggested €20 billion cost is that regional transfers are part and parcel of any developed economy: “we don’t, for example, assess Donegal’s or Leitrim’s economic performance on the back of the annual transfers they get from the Irish exchequer”.

But I wonder if this misses the point. It is, of course, the case that economically stronger parts of a country support areas where the economy does not perform as well – there are transfers from London to Northern Ireland and, to use the referenced case, from Dublin to Donegal and Leitrim.

That does not change the reality that reunification would add “the North’s ailing economy” to what we already have. That would involve very substantial costs which would have to be paid for. And the fact that regional transfers “are part and parcel of any developed economy” does not change that. – Yours, etc,